Two, three, many Civil Rights Initiatives!

From Human Events:

Ward Connerly, founder and chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI), has been riding the wave of his successful 2006 Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which banned racial preferences in public universities and government hiring and contracting in that state. He will be looking to give voters in five more states the opportunity on Election Day 2008 to ban racial preferences. After the decisive 58-42% win in Michigan, Connerly and his supporters have every reason to believe that public opinion is strongly on their side.

Arizona (along with Missouri, Oklahoma, Colorado, and South Dakota) will be a battleground state where voters may have the chance to ban racial preferences in public education, contracting and employment. Jennifer Gratz, the named plaintiff in Gratz v. Bollinger (in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down use of race in admissions by the University of Michigan) and now Director of State and Local Initiatives for ACRI, says that Arizona was chosen as one of the five states in part because of strong local support and concern over use of race in a variety of setting including the Tucson magnet school program, law school admissions and even court sponsored programs.

Let's hope Republicans in these states learn from what happened in Michigan.