By Kristina Goetz
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Research done three years ago by a law professor and his students at the University of Cincinnati is at the center of a debate about archaic language in the Florida constitution.

Florida state Sen. Steven Geller, D-Hallandale Beach, introduced a bill in December that would repeal defunct language that bans Asian immigrants from owning property. But he might abandon it because another legislator used the opportunity to add an amendment that would ban illegal aliens from land ownership.

"I know he doesn't want to kill it," said John Reid, Geller's legal counsel and legislative assistant. "But we don't know what we're going to do about the language right now. It needs some work, is a safe way to put it.

"I know the senator wants to take out language that would be offensive to some in the state of Florida, but he also wants to address the legitimate concerns of his colleagues."

The meaning of the language wasn't known until a group of UC law students and their professor, Jack Chin, did a project in 2000 on laws sanctioning legal discrimination and filed a 30-page brief with Florida officials, urging the language be repealed.

The brief said that to leave the provision in the Florida Constitution creates the misleading idea that the state endorses racial attitudes of a bygone era. The 1926 provision restricting ownership was put in the constitution at a time when many states were taking similar actions with "alien land laws" designed to prohibit the ownership of property by Asian immigrants.

The UC students were successful in encouraging the legislatures in Kansas and Wyoming to repeal their laws. Florida and New Mexico are the only states left that still use the language. In New Mexico, the legislature overwhelmingly voted to repeal the provision in the state's constitution, but voters rejected the amendment when it was put on the ballot, Chin said.

Even though all seven students who worked on the project have graduated, the fruits of their labor are paying off, he said.

Chin remains hopeful that the legislature will repeal the language but is disappointed that there has been such a prolonged debate about it.

"It is a disappointment," he said. "Our assumption was that the Florida legislature and the people of the state of Florida were against Jim Crow. Maybe we were wrong about that. We can't force the legislature to do something it doesn't believe in."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

E-mail kgoetz@enquirer.com