Ward Connerly, the noted African-American activist who argues for the end of laws that allow race-based preferences, gave a speech at the Silverado Brewing Company north of St. Helena this week, addressing the topics of education and immigration.

The former UC regent and affirmative action opponent, whose visit was sponsored by Upper Napa Valley Republican Women Federated, said there is a movement afoot to reinstate the system of race-based admissions standards struck down when Californians passed Proposition 209 in 1996.

He also noted social problems caused by illegal immigration, putting them in context of the rapidly changing demographics of California.

“We have a tremendous problem of trying to assimilate people from all around the globe into our country, especially into California, and make some sense of it,” he said. “In southern California you can drive for miles and miles and not have English spoken. It’s pretty hard to create a civilized society, where language is the currency of that society, when people don’t speak the same language.”

Connerly successfully championed Proposition 209, which prohibited public institutions from discriminating on the basis of race, gender and ethnicity. He is the founder and chairman of the nonprofit American Civil Rights Institute, which campaigns for similar laws around the country, such as a Michigan initiative that voters passed in November.

Connerly said advocates on the other side of the issue, spearheaded by the UC Berkeley administration, aim to place on a future statewide ballot a measure that would repeal Proposition 209 and once again allow the UC system to use race in its admissions process.

Connerly said 209’s opponents point to the need to increase diversity.

But, he said, “When you have 15 or 16 languages spoken at UC Berkeley, I think you’ve got a lot of diversity.”

The key to increasing UC minority representation is not lowering the academic bar, he said, but bringing students up to the existing requirements. Such an effort would require the cooperation of students’ families, who would have to go back to the basics, encouraging their kids to read and providing a solid foundation for their education, he said.

Not ‘Yale or jail’

“I’d rather see 94 black kids at UCLA who have earned the right to be there who don’t have a cloud over their head than 135 with all of them there being suspect,” said Connerly. He said the whole issue boiled down to fairness for college applicants.

He noted that many young people are not ready for the academic rigor at UC campuses and that others do not need UC degrees to lead productive lives. Students whose interests lie in such fields as auto mechanics, computer repair and roofing could take advantage of community colleges and state universities at about a third of the cost of using the UC system, he said, dismissing the notion that for young people of color the options are “Yale or jail.”

“I don’t believe it’s productive for us to be sending many of these kids to a four-, five- or six-year consignment to a campus when they’re really not ready to make productive use of the $13,000-per-year-per-student subsidy that the people of California make to the UC system,” he said. “Many of these kids are wasting their time, wasting our time and wasting our money.”

Connerly also touched on illegal immigration, saying that in the current political climate many people withhold their opinions on illegal immigration for fear of being called racist.

“I’m not sure what the solution is,” he said. “I don’t want to send people back to their country of origin en masse — I’m not heartless. But I think we need to find some solution to the problem and rationally try to get ourselves out of the bind we’re in. Right now there’s no end to the problem in sight. There’s not even a willingness to try to confront the problem, and I think it’s a huge one for our country.”

Upper Napa Valley RWF President Marjorie Preston, who helped arrange Connerly’s appearance, was pleased by his presentation.

“It affects St. Helena because a lot of our kids go to UC colleges,” she said. “They should have a fair chance of getting into college, and not be shoved down because someone else who is a minority takes their place. And it’s really cruel to minorities because frequently they get in over their heads and when they don’t succeed at UC they don’t get the opportunity to go somewhere else.”