RACIAL DIVIDE: PRO PROP. 54 TO MAKE ALL EQUAL IN STATE.

Byline: Donald P. Wagner and Manuel S. Klausner

ON Oct. 7, voters have the chance to terminate not only the career of Gov. Gray Davis, but also California's dishonorable and racially polarizing habit of classifying, characterizing and dividing her citizens.

Proposition 54, the Racial Privacy Initiative, will also be on the ballot, buried after the list of would-be governors vying to replace Davis.

Former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall once called ``distinctions by race ... so evil, so arbitrary and invidious that a state bound to defend equal protection of the laws must not involve them in any public sphere.'' Passage of Proposition 54 will help complete the work of the leaders of the civil-rights movement in creating a more colorblind government.

Proposition 54 outlaws the racial boxes Californians are constantly asked to check on state forms. Apply to a state college or enroll a child in a public school, try to get married, seek employment with any city or county, interact in any one of countless ways with the state or its political subdivisions, and you will be asked the question:

Are you ``white (though not of Hispanic origin)?''

Or ``Asian/Pacific Islander?''

Or maybe ``African American/Black (not of Hispanic origin)?''

Check the box so your government knows.

It gets silly. Employment applications for one state entity provide six boxes, including the three above, for prospective employees to check. If the applicant checks the box marked ``Asian/Pacific Islander,'' 10 more boxes are offered, including Guamanian, Laotian and Cambodian, to further subdivide the applicant.

It is hard to imagine apartheid-era South Africa offering more choices than these 16 boxes. It is also increasingly hard in our multiethnic society to decide which one box to check. What race is Tiger Woods?

But it is more than merely silly. It can be frightening.

The Antelope Valley 4-H Club recently felt the lash of government classification efforts when Los Angeles County threatened it with blacklisting from the Antelope Valley Fair. Why? Because the club did not have the right racial membership to satisfy government bureaucrats.

Think about that for a moment. The government did not want 4-H kids to exhibit their chicks or bunnies or lambs at the local fair, all because the government didn't like the kids' skin color. We have traveled far indeed from the ideal of a colorblind government.

Proposition 54 stops this nonsense. It prohibits the state and local governments from classifying by race or ancestry. These classifications are precisely those we recognize as a nation to be irrelevant. Why, then, collect the information, much less pry further into whether we are Guamanian or Cambodian or some other type of Asian/Pacific Islander?

Several years ago, voters enacted Proposition 209, the California Civil Rights Initiative. Leftist special-interest groups opposed Proposition 209 with shrill cries of racism. But their dire warnings of new discrimination and a return to Jim Crow proved unfounded.

The Racial Privacy Initiative extends the work of Proposition 209, and faces the same groundless, politically motivated opposition. These arguments are no more valid now than those trotted out the last time California said no to a race-obsessed government.

First, Proposition 54 does not prevent government classification where to do so actually makes sense. For instance, Proposition 54 specifically allows exemptions for medical research subjects or medical patients. According to the independent Legislative Analyst's Office, ``state and local agencies collect a variety of public health information through the use of surveys of the public which may include race-related information. It appears that this activity could continue'' - which is precisely the intent of Proposition 54's proponents.

Proposition 54 also provides exemptions for information required by the federal government, for the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which protects citizens against discrimination, and for some law enforcement activity. Finally, it allows the state Legislature, with the governor's approval, to create other reasonable exemptions.

Proposition 54 is a flexible measure that removes government from the odious business of caring about the race of its citizens. As Thurgood Marshall said so well when arguing an early civil-rights case, ``Classifications and distinctions based on race or color have no moral or legal validity in our society.''

A vote for Proposition 54 tells the state of California that we are all free and equal. The state needs to know nothing more. Nothing more matters.

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Drawing:

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Jorge Irribarren/Staff Artist