Lawyers Organize to Defeat Anti-Affirmative Action Initiative

A group of 15 lawyers’ groups called the Join Bar Coalition planned a news conference for Thursday to announce its efforts to defeat the anti-affirmative action measure on the California November ballot, the self-titled “California Civil Rights Initiative.” California Secretary of State Bill Jones announced Tuesday that the Initiative, filed on February 21, had collected 770,484 valid signatures, just 12,000 more than the required number. Responding to claims by Initiative chair and UC regent Ward Connerly, president of the National Lawyers Guild Cynthia Anderson-Baker said, “The measure (CCRI) is not going to bring anyone together…It is programs like affirmative action that have helped bring diversity to groups like bar associations.”