Ward Connerly stood at the podium to give his remarks about a petition that would end preferential treatment on the grounds of race and gender.

In the audience, dissenters of his opinions were holding dozens of signs reading “Decline to Sign” and “Affirmative Action Creates Opportunity.”

Creighton students were scattered throughout the crowd, handing out leaflets and stickers in opposition to Connerly.

After Connerly visited University of Nebraska campuses in Lincoln and Omaha, his petition to dismantle affirmative action in Nebraska will move forward.

The petition, which will need about 115,000 signatures to get on November’s ballot, would change Nebraska’s constitution so “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.”

Dayton Headlee, UNO senior and state chair for College Republicans, said the UNO audience was a hostile one.

Although Connerly had been scheduled to speak and receive questions for an hour, he left after 40 minutes.

“Mr. Connerly did leave a few minutes early because of the hecklers,” Headlee said. “But he’s spoken to more hostile audiences before.”

He said regardless of the hecklers, there were “a lot of people in the audience who supported him.”

Organizers for Connerly’s campaign contacted Headlee a week before his visit to Nebraska and asked where a good venue would be for Connerly to speak. It was Headlee who suggested UNO’s campus.

“We were very excited for him to come,” he said. “In general, his views about (preferential treatment) are in line with views of the College Republicans.”

Connerly denied being opposed to affirmative action.

“People shouldn’t get into a college or be denied admittance because of race,” he said. “Socioeconomic affirmative action is the way to do it.”

He said when a socioeconomic model for financial aid is used, like in California, then more minorities end up getting admitted.

Connerly, who was formerly on the Board of Regents for the University of California, said there is a sufficient academic gap between blacks and Latinos versus white and Asian students.

Because of that gap, he said preferences were made to people who weren’t as qualified to maintain a certain level of “diversity” on campus.

According to his statistics based on California, he said the number of black and Latino students would go up who had preference for financial aid if aid was granted solely on need and not race or gender.

“Some of you have a view that society is so racist it needs to be remedied with racial preferences,” Connerly said right before walking off stage. “I predict that most people in your state do not support that idea.”

Although he spoke to a packed house, many were not convinced by his remarks. After he was finished speaking and he asked the audience to be respectful, he opened the floor to questions. A line formed 20 people long, many holding oppositional signs.

One of the first to ask a question was Neal Lyons, an organizer for By Any Means Neccessary, an organization defending affirmative action as it stands.

“Ward Connerly said ‘remove affirmative action and let the chips fall where they may.’ Well, people aren’t chips and it does matter where we fall,” Lyons said.

Before the moderator, a member of the UNO College Republicans, removed the microphone from him, he told the audience to build a new Civil Rights Movement against Connerly and other organizations threatening affirmative action.

Dan Montez, an attendee, said not much has happened since the first Civil Rights Movement to right the wrongs of race discrimination. Montez said he was a part of the first movement in Omaha when Woolworth’s department store was the target of picketing around the country for its segregated lunch counter policy.

“I protested along with blacks at Woolworth’s in downtown Omaha, and I’m not that old,” he said. “You’re saying that we’ve come that far in this short amount of time? I don’t think that’s true.”

Analise Harris, Arts & Sciences sophomore and president of the Creighton NAACP, said she agreed with Connerly when he said race shouldn’t matter when applying to colleges.

“But this isn’t a perfect world,” Harris said. “People can discriminate during the application process by just looking at the names. A name like Shaquanda probably isn’t white. The last name Lopez probably isn’t white.”

She said Connerly wants to give financial preference to students based on need.

“That is already available in the form of Pell Grants, and that alone is not enough to ensure diversity and a level playing field,” she said.