Professor Hart Debates Affirmative Action Initiatives on TV

Watch or read the public television “Democracy Now” debate.

Watch the NBC “Your Show” debate.

On two television appearances this week, Professor Melissa Hart spoke against anti-affirmative Amendment 46, which will be on the ballot this November. She volunteers as President of Coloradans for Equal Opportunity, a group that is opposed to Amendment 46 (Initiative 31). She is one of the authors of a competing amendment, Colorado Equal Opportunity Initiative or Initiative 61, which would allow Colorado to maintain its affirmative action programs.

On the June 29 Channel 9 "YourShow" and the June 30 “Democracy Now” television programs, Professor Hart debated the merits of affirmative action programs with Jessica Peck Corry, the Executive Director of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, which is the name of the proposed anti-affirmative action constitutional amendment, Amendment 46. She is also the Director of the Campus Accountability Project and Property Rights Project at the Independence Institute, a Colorado-based free market think tank.

Washington, California, and Michigan already have similar initiatives and Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska will all be voting this November to end affirmative-action programs. Affirmative-action opponents failed to gather enough signatures in Missouri and Oklahoma to get their initiatives on the state ballots.

Ms. Corry believes that, “We have class-based problems in this country. In Colorado, in particular, we have about a 70% white population. We have incredible levels of advantage or disadvantage based on geography, based on parent income – and there’s not a single affirmative action program that would be destroyed through this initiative if these programs are open to everybody based on race and gender.”

Professor Hart rebutted with, “I can’t disagree that there’s a class-based problem in the country that also needs addressing, but class is not the only issue and there are still disadvantages in our society that come with being a woman or minority, regardless of your family income. People face discrimination on a regular basis. If this initiative passes, programs such as a CU program that gives girls interested in engineering and math an opportunity to develop that interest in high school.”