SACRAMENTO, Calif.—The fight over affirmative action in California’s higher education system is coming back.
Under a proposed constitutional amendment that passed the Senate on Thursday, voters would reconsider affirmative action programs at the University of California and California State University systems on the November ballot. SCA5 would remove certain prohibitions in place since 1996, when voters approved Proposition 209.
That initiative made California the first state to ban the use of race and ethnicity in public university admissions as well as state hiring and contracting.
The amendment under consideration in the Legislature would delete provisions in Proposition 209 that prohibit the state from giving preferential treatment in public education to individuals and groups based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.
“A blanket prohibition on consideration of race was a mistake in 1996, and we are still suffering the consequences from that initiative today,” said Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-Covina, who carried the measure. “You cannot address inequality by refusing to acknowledge it.”
The proposed amendment does not mandate an affirmative action program or set a quota, Hernandez said. It also applies only to education and not employment.
Hernandez joined other Democrats in arguing that recruitment of minorities has slipped at the UC and CSU systems because of the affirmative action ban.
