"Neither the state... nor any of its agents ... shall use race, sex, colour, ethnicity or national origin as a criterion for either discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group." Are those brave words, drawn in essence from the Civil Rights Act of 1964; or are they weasel words, taken from a proposition that is set to appear on the ballot in California in 1996? In 1964, these phrases were meant to redress decades of discrimination against blacks and women. Thirty years later, they are being interpreted as a cry for justice from fed-up white men who want preferences based on race and sex to be dismantled.
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