Florida's Trojan horse.

Opponents of equality for African Americans are at it again, this time in the state of Florida. This latest assault on race-based affirmative action is called the One Florida Initiative. It's truly a Trojan horse--perhaps offered with good intentions, but with the potential to be as destructive to equal opportunity for African Americans as California's Proposition 209 and Texas' Hopwood decision.

At first glance, the One Florida Initiative, Gov. Jeb Bush's plan to ensure diversity and equal opportunity tot access to state contracts and higher education, seems to make sense. To help more of the state's African American and other minority students gain access to a college education, the plan offers additional funding for tutoring, need-based financial aid and college outreach efforts, as well as wider access to PSAT tests and advanced placement courses at poorly performing public schools, in order to better prepare students for college. And to help more companies owned by blacks and other minorities, it offers to provide more accurate measurements of how much state contracting goes to these businesses, reform the procurement process to encourage a more diverse pool of participating state contractors, streamline the certification process, and boost financial and technical assistance for minority entrepreneurs.

But there's a catch: One Florida eliminates the very race-based affirmative action goals and policies necessary to measure the effectiveness of the initiative--instead of raising the bar, One Florida eliminates it in favor of "race-neutral" strategies alone. Despite the best intentions of supporters of the program, such a flaw will almost certainly doom its long-term effectiveness. Notwithstanding Gov. Bush's intentions, the same radical conservative forces that worked to limit the impact of Florida's affirmative action programs in creating educational and business opportunities for African Americans will be the same people working to ensure that one Florida is similarly ineffective.

When Proposition 209 was passed in California, we scrapped plans to move the Black Enterprise/Pepsi Golf & Tennis Challenge to the state. California's loss was Florida's gain. Now, we will closely monitor African American college enrollment and state contracting in Florida. Should results prove dissatisfactory, we are prepared to support a boycott of the state, including moving the Black Enterprise/Pepsi Golf & Tennis Challenge out of the Sunshine State in the year 2001--representing more than $5 million in business for the state economy.

If the funding and programs of the one Florida Initiative had been implemented in support of the state's existing affirmative action programs, Florida would already be the model of equal opportunity that this new plan is aimed at creating. Until and unless Gov. Bush is willing to confront those in his state and in his party who are hell-bent on barring African Americans and other minorities from state contracting and higher educational opportunities, the reality of One Florida will continue to be one of division, economic inequity and racial inequality.