Democratic and Republican politicians have not been able to extinguish the legacy of the victory over Jim Crow segregation coming out of the massive civil rights struggles in the 1950s and 1960s. And they have not been able to turn back the fight for equality by women and oppressed nationalities.
To illustrate this point, pollster Lou Harris found that 80 percent of the people responded positively when asked if they support the California constitutional amendment that would ban all state affirmative action programs based on race and gender "discrimination" and "preferences." But when asked if they favor the amendment if it "discourages or even ends programs to help women or minorities achieve equal opportunities in education and employment," support drops to 30 percent.
While holding off on a frontal assault, Clinton is determined to keep pressing against affirmative action. His aides say the president will issue a directive to eliminate or "reform" any program that includes quotas, one of the only ways to ensure that the word and the deed of affirmative action programs match up.
The fight to defend affirmative action is a fight to unify the working class. As long as the employers can deny jobs or other rights to some because they are a different nationality or sex, they can keep our class divided and weaken our ability to protect the jobs, wages, and working condition, of all workers.
The labor movement should champion the fight for affirmative action along with demands for jobs for all, a minimum wage at union-scale pay, and equal rights for immigrants. Putting these demands together presents a fighting program that can unite the working class and offer a powerful counter to the capitalists' bipartisan offensive against our rights and living standards.
The initial response by working people and students in California to the probes on affirmative action show that Clinton and the bipartisan gang on Capital Hill, and in state houses across the country, will not be able to dismantle this conquest without a fight.