Last week, I appeared on San Francisco’s PBS station to talk about Prop. 209, the anti-affirmative action measure that has been California law for 18 years.
It’s back in the news as a brand new proposal, Senate Constitutional Amendment 5 (SCA5), which hopes to repeal Prop 209 and restore the use of race in public university admissions.
The TV moderator asked me if California needed affirmative action.
As a journalist who covers race and ethnicity, I can speak more freely than, say, a politician. Still, I gave what I thought to be a measured response.
“We need something,” I said, going on to say Prop.209 took away the tools we need to achieve the kind of racial balance in our public colleges and universities that reflect the state’s overall population.
After nearly a generation, the state is behind in its diversity goals, after voters were duped by some “colorblind” notion that we could reach the equity we seek by not talking about race.
In that sense, Prop. 209 was an absolute failure.
