The Arizona state senate advanced a historic measure this week to protect racial equality and prohibit public agencies from discriminating against individuals on the basis of race or ethnicity. Yet in a bizarre twist, “Save Our Schools (SOS) Arizona” has come out in opposition to this fundamental idea that all citizens deserve the equal protection of the laws, regardless of their skin color. Sponsored by Senator Justine Wadsack and building off a similar measure that cleared the state House of Representatives last year, SCR1024 would give Arizona voters the chance to strengthen the state constitution’s ban on racial discrimination, declaring among its key provisions that:
“This state may not under any circumstance disadvantage or treat differently on the basis of race or ethnicity any individual from among any pool of applicants, students, employees or contract recipients when making a hiring, contracting, promotion or admission decision.”
In an upside-down response almost beyond parody, however, SOS Arizona issued a statement this week declaring that such language “asks voters to enshrine racism in the state Constitution,” arguing the measure “would negatively impact student learning, teacher retention and teacher recruitment.”
Far from a one-off, kneejerk misunderstanding of the measure, however, this echoes the group’s declaration the week before, which went on to explicitly argue in favor of evaluating applicants based upon their race:
“This culture-war-driven measure would prevent the state from giving minority-owned businesses any preference in state contracts [and] keep school districts from specifically hiring black or brown teachers…” Groups like SOS Arizona—a local organization otherwise best known for its failed attempt to block families from accessing the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program—declare that such racially motivated decision making is necessary to “increase representation” in hiring among government employees and teachers. Yet especially amid a purportedly severe teacher shortage, surely the last thing Arizona families need is for school districts to reject highly qualified teachers simply because their skin color checks the wrong box. Arizona voters already rejected such nakedly racially discriminatory policies in 2010, when we ratified—by a 19 point margin—a constitutional amendment to ban racial discrimination (including so-called “affirmative action”) policies from our public institutions.
Yet now, groups like SOS Arizona wish to circumvent this language under the banners of “racial justice,” “anti-racism,” “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) and other similarly benign sounding slogans that are being used to undermine the state’s constitutional guarantee of equal, color-blind treatment for all.
Indeed, despite their usually softer sounding euphemisms, such groups have also spoken candidly about their aims. Writing against a similar anti-discrimination measure in the spring of 2022, for instance, Save Our Schools Arizona Network’s Board President declared that racism was a “zero-sum game and that America’s redemption was dependent on white men giving up jobs, money and power against their will, for the betterment of all…They would never do it gladly, but at some point the nation…would be forced to balance itself along sex and race lines…The unpaid debt of systemic oppression of women and people of color would ultimately come due.”
In short, SOS Arizona and its leadership have fully embraced a worldview that pits citizens against each other in a “zero sum” competition based upon race. But even in deep blue California as recently as 2020, voters again rejected this radical far left thinking and blocked an attempt to legalize racial discrimination under the guise of DEI dogma. Surely a progressive idea too extreme even for California has no place in the Grand Canyon State.
Instead, Arizona workers, students, and citizens of all stripes deserve the full protection of the laws—applied equally and impartially, regardless of their race. No applicant should be denied work on account of her skin color, nor should prospective teachers ever be forced to pledge support for radical leftwing definitions of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in order to even set foot in the classroom. SCR1024 would protect against all such abuses, and Arizona voters deserve every opportunity to support it at the ballot.
Matt Beienburg is the Director of Education Policy at the Goldwater Institute.