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Ward Connerly—the man so many Berkeley residents love to hate—showed up on the UC campus this week, speaking at a packed conservative lecture series event to promote passage of Proposition 54. 

While he displayed no signs of the health problems that caused him to cancel a UCB Prop. 54 debate a week ago, the 64-year-old UC Regent appeared to be uncharacteristically tired as he mixed with students following last Tuesday night’s event. 

Proposition 54 is the Connerly-authored initiative on the Oct. 7 ballot that would ban government collection of most race-based data in California. 

The Tuesday night event, held in the Han Shun Auditorium of the Valley Life Sciences Building, was co-sponsored by the Berkeley College Republicans and the California Patriot, a conservative UCB student publication. While it was billed as a lecture, Connerly gave only a brief opening statement, and spent most of his hour-long presentation answering questions from the largely anti-54 student crowd. 

Connerly often scolded the sometimes raucous audience, telling one woman who interrupted his open remarks that, “I wonder if you realize how rude it is to speak out in the middle of someone’s statement.” To another woman who asked how Connerly felt about “being the leading black spokesperson for white racism,” he replied that, “it does not speak well for an intellectual mind to say that people should hold a certain view because of their skin color. Shame on you.” 

To a Native American woman who complained that her people had been marginalized, he reminded her of the powerful political position of Indian tribe gambling interests in California. 

“You may not want to hear that,” he said, “but that’s your problem. It’s the truth.” To charges of ulterior motives, he answered that he didn’t believe in segregation. “There is no right-wing agenda here.” 

Event organizers threatened to eject one woman who repeatedly interrupted Connerly. She finally stopped interrupting after an event security official spoke quietly with her. 

Many students appeared more interested in an actual debate on the substance and possible effects of Prop. 54 than they were on questioning Connerly’s motives. To these, Connerly gave long, back-and-forth attention, at one point seizing the microphone from the young moderator who seemed determined to stop anyone from asking a followup question. 

After Connerly said race-based data was no longer needed because “racism is not as prevalent as it was 30 to 40 years ago,” a young woman asked him, “But what if you’re wrong? How will we be able to get the data to find out what’s happening if your proposition passes?” 

“You’ve got data up the ying-yang right now,” Connerly answered, “but you’re still complaining that your status isn’t improving.” 

Connerly said that the collection of race-based data would have no effect on fighting discrimination. “We didn’t need data during the civil rights movement.” 

A small group of protesters from the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) held a short anti-Connerly rally in front of the Life Sciences Building before the event, carrying signs reading “Connerly = Civil Rights Fraud,” “Keep Jim Crow In His Grave,” and calling on Connerly to resign from his position as UC Regent.