On April 27, 2000 in San Francisco a federal grand jury issued a 21 count indictment of a Black contractor, a Black Human Rights Commission official and three white contractor executives for defrauding the San Francisco affirmative action program of millions of dollars. The significance is not only that there is fraud in this affirmative action program (as well as practically everywhere else) but it is rare that any contractor is prosecuted for millions of dollars of fraud over an affirmative action program in this country.

Years ago, as President of the San Francisco Black Chamber of Commerce, I led a group of 30 African American leaders to City Hall demanding that $12 million of contracts defrauded from the San Francisco Affirmative Action Program be returned to the minority business community. Because the fraud was so well documented by the San Francisco Chronicle, the contractor admitted the fraud. The penalty for his fraud of $12 million was merely to bar the contractor from city work for three years even when the contractor had no current contracts in San Francisco. Also on April 27th the Racial Justice Coalition led a demonstration at the California State Capitol to protest racial profiling, biased police practices, and Governor Davis' veto of the "Driving While Black or Brown" bill. The day before, a report sponsored by the U.S. Justice Department and six of the nation's leading foundations documented racism in the justice system citing that Black youth are more than six times as likely as whites to be sentenced to prison. For drug offenses, Blacks are 48 times more likely than whites to be sentenced to prison. "These disparities accumulate, and they make it hard for members of the minority community to complete their education, get jobs, and be good husbands and fathers," states Mark Soler of the Youth Law Center.

At another demonstration, 50,000 affirmative action supporters jammed the State Capitol grounds in Tallahassee, Florida demanding that Florida Governor Jeb Bush rescind his Executive Order to ban affirmative action in admissions at the state's 10 public universities and in state contracting.

Further up the east coast, the South Carolina Senate took its first step by voting to remove the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol dome and place it in another site on the state house grounds. However, the NAACP will continue its boycott of the $14.6 billion tourism industry, specifying that the flag is a racist symbol and is still too visible. (Governor Jim Hodges, who helped to establish the South Carolina Black Chamber of Commerce, wants the flag down.)

On education, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has criticized California, Florida and Texas for replacing affirmative action with admission to public universities for the top graduates in every high school in that state. "Success in bringing minorities to campuses relies on the segregation of high schools and that they do nothing to diversify graduate and professional schools," cites the Commission's 10 page report. Florida guarantees admissions to 20% of the top high school gradates, Texas 10%, and 4% for California. Even as the top graduate concept extends out to rural and inner-city areas, University of California President Richard Atkinson and Provost Judson King have consistently stated on a personal basis that UC should mirror the population of California.

In Los Angeles on April 7, 2000, presidential candidate and Texas Governor George Bush made every effort to distance himself from the anti-affirmative action and anti-immigrant policies of former California Gov. Pete Wilson. "I want the American dream to belong to all Americans," stated Bush.

Speaking of the American dream with a backdrop of anti-affirmative activities in Florida, my book, The Lynching of the American Dream, chronicling the attacks on affirmative action, is now available on a new web site, "http://rxfactory.shop/" One may view my last three Affirmative Action Update articles on the web site.

Also, Ward Connerly has launched his new book, Creating Equal, citing his fight against race preferences in California, Washington and Florida. Connerly, the Black UC Regent who led the fight to "gut" affirmative action at the California state level and prior to that, at the University of California, passionately defends his anti-affirmative policies while also defending himself against such labels as "Uncle Tom," "a traitor to his race," and "a white man with black skin."