Ward Connerly delivered one of the big wins for conservatives on election day 2006--a lopsided victory (58-42 percent) for the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which banned racial and gender preferences in state university admissions and contracting and hiring.

Connerly is the nation's most visible proponent of measures to eliminate race-based preferences, having led the successful fight for Proposition 209 in California in 1996 and a similar measure in Washington state in 1997. With momentum from the 2006 victory, Connerly set out to qualify similar ballot initiatives in five states for 2008. He has hit a bump in the road in Missouri.

Leading the attack on him in Missouri is the Michigan-based group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), whose national co-chair Shanta Driver summed up the attacks on Connerly:

A white-majority electorate does not have the right to codify in law white privilege and deny minorities their fundamental right to equality. This initiative, if passed, will resegregate higher education in Missouri and legally ban the only policies that have been successful in creating equal opportunity and integration.

BAMN is the most vocal and extreme of Connerly's opponents--leading demonstrations that have turned violent and disrupting public meetings, labeling Connerly "the most notorious and fanatical right wing opponent of civil rights in California" and filing suit to invalidate the Michigan voters' decision, claiming Connerly and his supporters engaged in voter fraud. BAMN repeatedly tried to remove Connerly from his position as a regent of the University of California because of his effort to remove race-based admissions.

BAMN is having success in Missouri thanks to the Democratic secretary of state Robin Carnahan (daughter of former governor Mel Carnahan) and the attorney general, Jay Nixon. The ballot initiative that Connerly sought to qualify in Missouri is identical to the successful Michigan one and reads as follows:

The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

That's not what will be in front of voters as they go into the voting booth if Carnahan has her way. After reviewing Connerly's language, she prepared the required state "ballot title"--the summary of the initiative that appears on the ballot. Carnahan's summary reads:

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to ban: affirmative action programs designed to eliminate discrimination against, and improve opportunities for women, and minorities in public contracting, employment and education; and allow preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin to meet federal program funds eligibility standards as well as preferential treatment for bona fide qualifications based on sex?

Connerly sees the re--vamped language as "designed to prejudice the initiative." "This was clearly not un--der-taken in good faith," says Roger Clegg, general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity and longtime opponent of racial preferences. He notes that the initiative "does not ban all affirmative action--only that which uses preferences based on race, ethnicity, and sex." Clegg concludes that what Carnahan is doing is "to distort the language in the initiative so people won't vote for it."