Senate panel advances anti-affirmative action bill
by January 28, 2025 7:06 pm 339 views
A controversial bill that the sponsor said would prohibit discrimination or preferential treatment by Arkansas state agencies and public entities passed the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Tuesday (Jan. 28). Opponents contend the measure will lead to a lack of minority opportunities in business, government and education.
Senate Bill 3 by Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Jonesboro, would prohibit discrimination or preferential treatment favoring an individual or group “on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in matters of state employment, public education, or state procurement.”
The bill specifically would not affect preferences provided to veterans, it would not prohibit religious-based preferences, and it would not prohibit considerations of sex-based qualifications that are “reasonably necessary.” It also states it would not preempt state or federal discrimination law.
Individuals who believe their rights have been violated could bring a civil action in circuit court with the ability to gain injunctive relief, court costs and attorney’s fees. Violators would be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor, according to the bill.
The committee’s chair, Sen. Scott Flippo, R-Bull Shoals, declared the bill passed on a voice vote after two members expressed opposition. Sen. Alan Clark, R-Lonsdale, said he opposed one section of the bill that would end preferences for hiring Black teachers. The committee’s only Democrat, Sen. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, expressed opposition to the bill in principle.
In presenting the bill, Sullivan noted it was similar to one he tried to pass two years ago. He said a big difference was that this one would comply with President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders rolling back the federal government’s affirmative action policies. He said Arkansas should not be an affirmative action “sanctuary state.”
“(Discrimination) and preferential treatment is wrong and should not be tolerated in or by our government institutions,” he said. “To make the case that I or this legislation portends to eliminate all discrimination is an attempt to create a straw man. This legislation applies only to government agencies in areas of education, employment and procurement.”
Among its provisions, the 14-page bill would remove the word “Minority” from the Critical Needs Minority Teacher Scholarship Program. Its purpose has been to attract qualified minority teachers to the Delta and other geographical areas with teacher shortages. If passed, it would award scholarships to “individuals” rather than “minorities.”
“The term ‘critical needs’ is inclusive of minorities,” Sullivan said. “It’s not eliminating minorities. It’s making that population larger, not smaller.”
The bill would also remove a requirement that public schools prepare three-year teacher and administrator recruitment plans that include recruiting and retaining racial and ethnic minorities. It would end a requirement that the Department of Education set goals and take actions for increasing the number of minority teachers in the state.
Clark said he agreed with much of the bill but said the state has a shortage of Black male teachers, who are needed to help Black male students succeed. He said students respond better to teachers who look like them.
In response, Sullivan said students learn best with the best teachers. Sen. John Payton, R-Wilburn, said Clark’s argument would mean that white teachers would be hired in rural areas that are mostly white.
Tucker recalled a presentation made roughly 20 years earlier by Dr. Terrence Roberts, one of the nine students who integrated Little Rock Central High School in 1957. In the speech, Roberts said that Black people arrived in the New World in the 1600s and didn’t achieve equality under the law until the 1960s. The few decades of recent legal equality did not make up for 300 years of oppression, Roberts had said.
Tucker agreed, telling the committee, “For 300 years, discrimination was not only tolerated. It was emboldened. And once finally at long last we universally recognized that racial and sexist discrimination is wrong, are we now saying, we cannot provide opportunity on this basis? So for 300 years, racism was OK. You’re oppressed. When it comes time to make up for that, we say, ‘Sorry, we can’t do that because now we see that racism is wrong.’”
He noted that the committee consists of eight white men. He said that two years earlier when the bill passed the Senate, its 18 votes all came from white men.
Among the audience members speaking in favor of the bill was Robert Steinbuch, a Bowen School of Law professor, who said the best teachers result in the best learning. He said roughly 10 other states, including California, have adopted versions of Sullivan’s proposal.
“We are moving to merit,” he said. “We are moving away from priorities for particular groups based on their skin color, based on their plumbing.”
Deborah Springer Suttlar spoke against the bill, saying Arkansas has a history of being discriminatory toward Blacks and minorities. She said there have always been preferential treatments, such as legacy admissions at colleges. She said history is being repeated in Arkansas with biased laws and policies.
“Some people cannot be trusted,” she said. “That’s why we have affirmative action. Because when we walk in the room, we are seen for the color of our skin before you even know if we are qualified for a position.”
Antwan Philips, an attorney and Little Rock city director, said he was able to graduate from Bowdoin College in Maine because he was given an opportunity because of his race along with his efforts. He said Sullivan’s bill is “not about ending preferential treatment. It’s about ending opportunities.”
The bill’s other specific provisions include:
– Renaming the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Equity Assistance Center as the Equality Assistance Center, and changing its mission to assist school districts in “desegregation and nondiscrimination.” In four places, those words would replace “civil rights.” The bill also would do away with the center’s goal of helping school districts develop recruitment and retention plans.
– Ending a requirement that state-supported colleges and universities establish a program to retain minority students, faculty and staff, as well as the requirement that higher education institutions prepare affirmative action plans.
– Doing away with a requirement that state agencies and institutions of higher education adopt hiring programs designed to increase the percentage of minority employees to the same approximate level as the state’s minority population.
– Ending a requirement that state agencies encourage minority participation in contract requests for proposals.
– Changing state law so that the Alcoholic Beverage Control Division would consider permits based on “the benefit of competition to consumers” and not a “lack of diversity in ownership.”
With passage from the Senate State Agencies committee, SB 3 now heads to the full State Senate for consideration.