In words that chillingly echo those of Southern segregationists, Michigan Congressman John Dingell has told Ward Connerly, a black University of California Regent and anti-affirmative action activist, that he--and presumably his kind--is not welcome in his home state. Here's the full text of the letter:

Congress of the United States
House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515-2215
July 9, 2003

Mr. Ward Connerly
American Civil Rights Coalition
P.O. Box 188350
Sacramento, CA 95818

Mr. Connerly:

The people of Michigan have a simple message to you: go home and stay there.Ý We do not need you stirring up trouble where none exists.

Michiganders do not take kindly to your ignorant meddling in our affairs.Ý We have no need for itinerant publicity seekers, non-resident troublemakers or self-aggrandizing out-of-state agitators.Ý You have created enough mischief in your own state to last a lifetime.

We reject your ìblack vs. whiteî politics that were long ago discarded to the ash heap of history.Ý Your brand of divisive racial politics has no place in Michigan, or in our society.Ý So Mr. Connerly, take your message of hate and fear, division and destruction and leave.Ý Go home and stay there, youíre not welcome here.

With every good wish,

Sincerely yours,

S/signature

John D. Dingell
Member of Congress

The letter is so rude, so crude, and so potentially professionally suicidal that one would be tempted to write it off as a hoax. Dingell has removed that temptation, however, by posting the letter proudly, punctuation problems and all, on his website (download the .pdf to see how Dingell's snarling screed looks on official governmental letterhead). Dingell has also posted his triumphant comments on the Supreme Court's recent ambiguous rulings on the University of Michigan's use of affirmative action in admissions decisions. Dingell calls the rulings "a historic victory for all Americans."

Connerly has replied to Dingell with magisterial condescension. He notes that despite Dingell's racially tinged warning to the contrary, he is, as a citizen of the United States, welcome to exercise his rights in all states. He notes further that those rights include the right to participate in local affairs and to express his views. Though Connerly invited Dingell to post the letter on his website, Dingell has not done so.

Dingell wants to keep Connerly out of Michigan because he is worried that Connerly may do in his state what he has successfully managed to do in California and Washington: introduce a ballot initiative that would eliminate the use of racial prefences in hiring and admissions at all public colleges and universities in the state. Connerly, who chairs the American Civil Rights Coalition, calls the initiative the Michigan Civil Rights Act. He wants to see it on the Michigan ballot in November 2004. Such an initiative, if successful, would amount to an end-run around the Supreme Court ruling. If the people of Michigan decide that they do not want to support racial preferences, they are free to vote them down.

When Connerly announced his intentions on the UM campus a couple of weeks ago, there was plenty of unruly protesting. But an informal poll conducted by the Michigan Student Assembly last winter suggests that Michiganders--or at least UM students--are nowhere near as uniformly united in favor of racial preferences as Dingell would have Connerly and the rest of the world believe. The MSA survey showed that 41.5 percent of students opposed UM's use of race in admissions, while 40.8 percent of students supported the University and 17.7 percent of students said they did not feel they knew enough about the issues to have an opinion. Granted, such surveys are hardly scientific proof of the true state of public opinion. But at the same time, the numbers are quite suggestive. At the very least, they indicate the need for an unfettered, open debate about what "diversity" is and whether hiring and admissions practices should be shaped with diversity in mind. Among other things, such a debate would expose for Michigan voters how UM's own internal studies have shown that the pursuit of diversity has, in fact, increased many of the problems it was intended to resolve. Peter Wood discusses this interesting little wrinkle in the Michigan case in Diversity: The Invention of a Concept.

What Dingell should have done: warmly welcome Connerly to the state of Michigan, and thank him for creating the opportunity for a public debate about an issue that is clearly of great concern to the citizens of the state. He might have noted that the people of the state of Michigan have not yet had a chance to formally register their opinion of the use of racial preferences in higher education, and that Connerly's initiative would give them a chance to inform themselves about the issue and to participate meaningfully in a decision-making process that has thus far excluded them. He might have added that he felt confident that the people of Michigan understood the importance of diversity and that they would certainly vote in favor of affirmative action. Such a letter would have made a statement to Connerly while at the same time remaining entirely within the bounds of decorum and decency. But if Dingell has conveyed anything by his letter, it is that he is not interested in decorum and decency--or in giving the people of Michigan the chance to make up their own minds about racial preferences.