A legislative committee takes a step tonight toward eliminating Affirmative Action.
Committee chair, State Senator Glen Grothman (R-West Bend), says Affirmative Action has outlived its usefulness. It's time to make everyone truly equal.
The committee's recommendations would apply to University admissions, state contracts and state government jobs.
The committee is expected to recommend two things. First change current law. Grothman says, as it is now, people who are one-eighth or one sixteenth of a minority can declare themselves eligible for preferential treatment. The proposed legislation would make that standard one fourth.
The other option would be a constitutional amendment similar to what Michigan voters passed last November. That would eliminate Affirmative Action all together. Something Grothman says would take longer and be more controversial.
Either option is already controversial but Grothman says this country's strength comes from being Americans first. Current Affirmative Action bureaucracy, he says, teaches people it's more important to consider where your ancestors came from.
And that, Grothman contends, only divides the country.