Ward Connerly is a civil rights leader who doesn’t just make headlines; he makes positive contributions to history.

During his unpaid term on the University of California Board of Regents, he successfully motioned to eliminate racial preferences from the university admissions criteria.

Then two years ago, Connerly led the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), a successful ballot initiative that eliminated government racial preferences in California.

Most recently, he led a similar initiative in the state of Washington. That initiative passed in last Tuesday’s election.

Washington, one of America’s most liberal states, and California, one of the most ethnically diverse, are both getting out of the government racial discrimination business.

These grass-roots initiatives overcame entrenched opposition. Ending racial preferences was opposed by the White House, big-city mayors, Hollywood stars, major corporations (Microsoft was one of several companies that ran ads against the initiative), the news media and the multi-million dollar civil-rights industry.

In California, opponents ran ads showing burning crosses and, using a familiar tactic, charged that the initiative was based in hate.

In both states, Connerly was publicly called an “Uncle Tom,” an “Oreo,” a “sell-out,” a “house slave” (Jesse Jackson used that one) and many other epithets. Often when it happened, crowds applauded.

But most could see through the hype. They saw a system of government racial-preferences that produced stigmas and resentments and that went against both Martin Luther King’s dream of a color-blind society and the right to equal protection under the law.

The dust has settled from the CCRI. It was initially challenged in the courts for violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

This is laughable, considering the language of the CCRI was nearly word-for-word the same as the 1964 bill.

In addition, when Barry Goldwater asked Hubert Humphrey during a congressional debate if the 1964 Civil Rights act would ever be used to enact racial quotas, Humphrey responded that it would not. In fact, Humphrey said he would eat his hat if it ever did.

Ward Connerly’s leadership is putting the civil rights movement back on track.

His success in California and Washington shows great personal courage as well as the failure of politicians to address the issue.

Fewer than 15 percent of Americans favor racial preferences as a means of making up for past racial discrimination.

Yet neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party are taking strong initiatives to end government racial preferences nationwide.

I am a great admirer of Ward, and the high point of my college experience has been inviting Mr. Connerly to speak at Iowa State.

The night he spoke at ISU was not an easy one for Mr. Connerly. Minutes before ISU students Jason Darrah, Mark Nimmer and myself picked him up from his Des Moines hotel, he had gotten a call informing him of the death of a friend.

She worked with the University of California and was a rare ally during the controversy over preferences there. Ward was clearly shaken by the news.

Connerly’s lecture at ISU went well, and he stayed long after it was over.

In fact, a crew was rolling up the final piece of carpet and had to pause at the end of the roll because Mr. Connerly was standing there talking to a final student who wanted to speak to him.

She had patiently waited for a chance to let him know that she thought a man had been out of line during the Q&A session.

The man had accused Connerly of turning his back on his mother and father and questioned if Connerly ever visited his parents anymore.

The man who accused Connerly did not know that Ward’s parents had died when he was a child.

By staying and offering Connerly, with whom I think she disagreed, some simple decency, this woman earned my respect.

The conversation in the car on the way back to Des Moines after the lecture was fascinating, enlightening and educational. When I was a kid and imagined what college would be like, that car ride was it.

Government racial-preferences are wrong, unpopular and increase racial tensions.

Ward proves that one man with common sense can make a difference. One state at a time, he is advocating the end of government racial preferences. And he is winning.

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Benjamin Studenski is a senior in industrial engineering from Hastings, Minn.