AURORA | Colorado voters will be asked Nov. 4 whether Colorado should follow in the footsteps of California and Michigan and abolish the state’s affirmative action programs.

Amendment 46 would “prohibit Colorado governments from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, public education, or public contracting,” according to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office.

Supporters of the measure say it ensures that everyone is treated equally by the state, while opponents argue that discrimination against minorities still exists and preferential treatment ensures that the playing field is more level.

“It is an intentionally deceptive initiative brought in by out-of-state carpet baggers that have been endorsed by the KKK,” said Melissa Hart, a University of Colorado law professor and one of the leaders of the opposition to 46.

Hart said the initiative won’t effect affirmative action programs that use quota or point systems because those are already illegal. The programs that will feel the brunt of the amendment, she said, are equal opportunity programs such as “modest outreach and training and recruitment programs that give excluded communities a chance to participate.”

Hart said discrimination still exists and those programs help people who wouldn’t otherwise have equal access.

“We live in a society where there is not yet equal access to opportunity,” she said.

Amendment 46 is similar to California’s Proposition 209, which voters there passed in 1996. Proposition 209 had the backing of the American Civil Rights Institute, which is also supporting Amendment 46.

Hart said that in California minority students at the state’s two flagship universities, University of California, Los Angeles and University of California, Berkeley, have enrolled in smaller numbers since the proposition passed. At UCLA minority enrollment has dropped 45 percent since Proposition 209 and at Berkeley minority enrollment has dropped 65 percent, she said.

“People of color in California are not being served by the best colleges and universities,” she said.

The proposition also led to the demise of summer programs aimed at getting young women involved in math and science, she said.

But Kate Melvin, assistant director of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, which is backing Amendment 46, said that in California and other states that have passed similar measures, they have proven to work well.

“It’s worked out great in the states that have passed it,” she said.

Melvin said that since Proposition 209 passed in California, seven of the nine schools in the University of California system have seen minority enrollment, retention and graduation increase.

She said that supporters have been trying to get the initiative on the ballot for the past 10 years but weren’t successful until this year.

The bill has the support of Ward Connerly, the controversial former University of California regent who backed Proposition 209 in that state and has pushed to abolish affirmative action programs around the country.

Melvin said that while the organization has the support of Connerly, it is not an out-of-state attempt to change Colorado law, but an attempt by Coloradoans to change the state’s laws.

She said 46 ensures that people are treated equally, regardless of their gender or race.

Melvin, who is an economics student at the University of Colorado, Denver, said that if Amendment 46 passes, it would mean that women like her get opportunities based on their merits, not their gender.

“It’s about advancing society to a point where a woman contractor doesn’t walk into a room full of male contractors, get the bid and have them say, ‘you only got it cause you’re a woman,’” she said.