Big News From Houston Fell Through The Cracks

LAST fall, Houston was The Seattle Times' favorite city:

-- On Nov. 2, The Times carried a front-page Sunday story titled "Affirmative action faces critical vote in Houston." This lengthy article, originally published in The Washington Post, informed readers about the Houston Civil Rights Initiative (HCRI) - a ballot measure challenging the city government's race- and gender-based hiring programs and contracting set-asides.

-- On Nov. 5, The Times followed up with a post-election, front-page story under the headline "Houston rejects bid to repeal affirmative action." The article, culled from Dallas Morning News and Reuters reports, detailed the defeat of the measure by a 54-46 margin.

-- On Nov. 9, a Sunday Times editorial blared: "Thank you, Houston." The editorial said Houston voters "showed the nation an important lesson in how to head off the anti-affirmative-action assault that is sweeping the country. The lesson: Ask the right question."

Over the objection of the measure's sponsors, the mayor and city council had removed reference to ending "preferential treatment" in public hiring and contracting based on race or gender. Instead, they substituted the far broader and biased query: "Shall the Charter of the City of Houston be amended to end the use of affirmative action for women and minorities . . . ?"

-- On Nov. 13, The Times carried another Page 1 story titled "Debate over affirmative action moves to this state." The staff-written article connected Houston to Washington state, which will vote this fall on Initiative 200 - a statewide measure similar to HCRI that seeks to outlaw government race and gender preferences.

-- On Nov. 16, The Times editorial page carried a hefty "Issues" piece titled "Intellectual honesty cannot be compromised in affirmative-action programs." The article discussed the language controversy in the Houston election.

-- On Dec. 21, The Times again made mention of the Houston defeat in a 2,500-word article on the front page of the Local News section titled "I-200 could keep courts busy - controversial measure has ambiguous language."

Given its exhaustive coverage of the Houston election in 1997, The Times' absolute silence on the latest news from this Texas city is extraordinary. On June 26, District Judge Sharolyn Wood threw out the results of the Houston referendum and ordered a new election. It was opponents of the Houston measure - not the sponsors - who were guilty of using deliberately misleading language.

I got the word from the California-based group Americans Against Discrimination and Preferences on the night of the ruling; KVI listeners heard brief mention of the news the following day on Doug Glant's Saturday afternoon show.

The Associated Press reported the story, which ran as a brief in The New York Times on June 27; the Houston Chronicle published several articles on the decision. But in the 10 days since this key ruling, neither the news nor editorial pages of The Seattle Times carried a single word about it. Nor did any of the other major dailies in Washington state.

It's easy to dismiss the Houston decision as an isolated ruling. But every time opponents have battled the careful, narrow ballot language of anti-preference measures - in California, Washington and now Houston - they have failed. In courts of law, "affirmative action" is vague and ambiguous; "preferential treatment" is clear and precise.

The same holds true in courts of public opinion - where polls have shown that even college professors can't agree whether "affirmative action" means granting preferences to women and certain racial groups or promoting equal opportunity for all individuals without regard to their race or sex.

That is why the Washington state attorney general's office, held by a Democrat, successfully fought the American Civil Liberties Union's attempt to alter I-200's language. Like the Houston spoilers, the ACLU and anti-200 leaders wanted to commit linguistic sabotage by inserting "affirmative action" in the anti-preference ballot title. But a Thurston County judge sided with the pro-200 campaign and the state, which objected to the ACLU's "loaded words."

Initiative 200 would prohibit the use of race and gender preferences in government contracting, hiring and admissions. Nothing more, nothing less. Yet, opponents of California's Proposition 209, Houston's civil-rights initiative and Washington state's Initiative 200 continue to claim that the measures will eliminate all affirmative action - not just preferences, but also outreach and recruitment programs.

This is a patently false claim. A front-page article in the Los Angeles Times in April makes clear that aggressive outreach efforts - including telephone campaigns, open houses and campus receptions - are permissible under Proposition 209 (as they would be under I-200).

Indeed, such programs are thriving. This spring, thousands of University of California students, faculty admissions officers, and even the chancellors of UC Berkeley and UCLA, made phone calls and home visits to top qualified black and Latino high-school seniors.

Sins of omission can be as damaging to the news media's credibility as sins of commission. Voters in Washington state deserve a more complete and accurate picture of the legal and practical effects of the movement to end government race and gender preferences. Providing only doom, gloom - or a total news vacuum - won't do. Michelle Malkin's column appears Tuesday on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is: malkin1@ix.netcom.com.