Posted 2:06 PM by Floyd

The top story in today's webbed Mercury News is a thinly veiled attack on Proposition 54, which would ban collection of racial data by most government entities. Here is the teaser:

Equal opportunity?

EXPERIENCE ILLUSTRATES PROP. 54 DEBATE

Elizabeth Romàn wasn't considered college material, but she got help by checking "Latino" on forms and earned two degrees from SJSU. If voters pass Proposition 54 in the Oct. 7 election, the state will not be able to collect and use this kind of racial and ethnic data.

The full article is only slightly less biased. Connerly does get to respond to the oh-gosh-prop-54-will-take-that-little-girl's-education-away simpering:

To Connerly, Romàn is a perfect example of why his measure is needed. Students should receive special consideration based on measures such as family income or parents' education level, which have nothing to do with race.

``It's based on income, class, whether a student's parents went to school. It's based on neighborhoods,'' he said of student achievement. ``There are ways of getting that information without saying, `Are you black?' ''

But neither Romàn nor reporter Katherine Corcoran have asked themselves whether it would be right for a student named, say, Floyd McWilliams to check "White" on a form and thereby obtain special assistance.