By Frederick E. Jordan

Since the creation of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department in 1957 by Republican President Eisenhower, the division has served through Republican and Democratic Administrations as the guardian of civil rights and affirmative action. Today, infected by the Bush Administration ideology, the U.S. Justice Department has concluded that universities, such as Southern Illinois University, are violating the rights of Caucasian students by offering graduate fellowships in science and engineering to underrepresented students under a National Science Foundation Program. One is reminded that UC Berkeley admitted 800 students to its engineering program last fall and not one was Black.

Also infected by this same ideology has been the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which recently released a scathing report criticizing federal agencies for providing affirmative action to minority owned businesses. Can you believe it? The report sparked outrage by the minority community and small business experts that argue that race-based federal procurement programs are essential in order to ensure that minority-owned businesses have equal access to procurement.

It is feared that this same type of racist mentality will infect the Bay Area where African Americans have supported $billions in bonds for major construction programs, but will reap little benefit. The San Francisco Public Utilities Director has practically ignored the appeals of the San Francisco Black Unity Council of Organizations on the $4 billion Hetch Hetchy Water Project. In March 2006, Caltrans will be receiving bids, with no minority business goals, on a $1.4 billion section of the $5 billion Bay Bridge Project. BART, with its Bechtel Consultant, let the first four contracts of its $1 billion Earthquake Retrofit Project go to all major international firms, with not one project going to a local small business or minority business. The San Francisco MUNI ran the first $700 million extension through the Black Bay View-Hunters Point neighborhood with continuous protests by the community for jobs and contracts. Other billion dollar projects such as the Port of Oakland Airport Expansion with 25% Minority/Women participation and the San Francisco Hunters Point Shipyard Redevelopment Project, that includes six Black Community developers, are making efforts. However, major developers in Oakland grumbled loudly when Oakland Mayoral Candidate Ron Dellums mentioned that minority firms should be a meaningful0 part of downtown Oakland development.

“Black economic access is political access and we need to leverage that, in spite of Prop. 209,” states U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Politically, the President and Vice President of the BART Board of Directors are Black women. The new General Manager of the San Francisco MUNI is Black. The new Division President of Lennar/BVHP, developer of the Hunters Point Shipyard Project, is Black. The immediate Past President of the Port of Oakland’s board is Black. Expectations?

“ Our nettlesome task is to discover how to organize our strength into compelling power.”…….Martin Luther King, Jr.

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