Proposition 209 in California

Introduction to the Issues

As a result of Proposition 209 passing in California, the University of California (UC) was banned from any consideration of race or ethnicity in college admissions. Even though there was a stay pending litigation, the effect was nonetheless felt.

At the undergraduate level, the UC applicant pool declined 7.7 percent for blacks and 5.8 percent for Latinos. At the UC Boalt Hall Law School, the number of blacks dropped 81 percent, and Hispanic admissions fell 50 percent (Locke, 1997; UCLA Office of the Chancellor, 1997; UC Berkeley Office of the Chancellor, 1997).

In practice, abandoning affirmative action in selection is likely to increase the reliance on test scores for admissions.

Official Documents

AAU Statement on the Importance of Diversity in University Admissions

http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/projects/aa/docs/AAU.html

Official Affirmative Action Review Report to the President.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/OP/html/aa/aa-index.html

• This report summarizes the research of a policy review board headed by Christopher Edley (Special Counsel to the President) and George Stephanapoulos (Senior Adviser to the President for Policy and Strategy). The review presents to the President the details of various Affirmative Action programs across the U.S. and, where appropriate, offers policy recommendations.

APA Affirmative Action Briefing Affirmative Action: Who Benefits?

http://www.apa.org/ppo/aacon.html

• This document integrates and summarizes key points made by the presenters an APA Affirmative Action briefing. Faye Crosby, Ph.D., discussed the varieties of affirmative action policies and how these policies compare with equal employment opportunity policies. Audrey Murrell, Ph.D., summarized current data on workforce participation of women and ethnic minorities, and the barriers these groups face to equal representation in income and employment. John Dovidio, Ph.D., summarized research into contemporary forms of racism that affirmative action policies must address.

Affirmative Action Debated at UC: Is it fair? Will it Survive?

http://www.professionals.com/~chepc/ct_0495/ctn1_0495.html

• Carl Irving, a former writer for the San Francisco Examiner, analyzes the current Affirmative Action debate, in depth, from all angles.

Newspaper Articles

05/29/98; Boston Globe Online

By Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/149_lr/A_victory_for_diversity.htm

• Academic excellence and pluralism are reachable goals for Boston's examination schools, and yesterday's ruling by Chief US District Judge Joseph L. Tauro confirms that truth. In rejecting the argument that a white girl's constitutional rights had been violated when lower-scoring minority students were admitted to Boston Latin School instead of her, Tauro ruled that diversity is indeed ''a compelling state interest in the context of intermediate and secondary public education.''

05/29/98; Boston Globe Online

By Beth Daley, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/149_lr/Admission_policy_at_city_exam_schoo.htm

• A federal judge yesterday upheld one of the country's most scrutinized affirmative action programs, allowing Boston public schools to consider race in deciding which students gain admission to the prestigious Boston Latin School. The decision is the latest development in a three-year reverse discrimination battle involving two admission policies and two white students who were denied entrance into the school despite scoring higher than blacks and Hispanics who were admitted. Set against Boston's turbulent desegregation history, the case is not over: within 25 minutes of Tauro's decision, attorney Michael McLaughlin challenged it to the US Court of Appeals.

05/29/98; Boston Globe Online

By Beth Daley and Ellen O'Brien, Globe Staff

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/149_lr/Decision_could_prove_to_be_landmark.htm

• As courts across the country increasingly throw out affirmative action policies in workplaces and colleges, yesterday's Boston Latin School decision by a federal judge may give public schools a compelling argument to keep racially sensitive admission policies intact. US District Court Judge Joseph L. Tauro's ruling singled out elementary and secondary schools as having a ''unique'' obligation to prepare children ''to succeed ... in a diverse society.'' Still, education and desegregation specialists warn that no clear conclusions can be drawn yet because so few high school cases have been ruled on by higher courts.

05/21/98; Philadelphia Inquirer

http://www.phillynews.com:80/inquirer/98/May/21/national/REDD21.htm

• The post-affirmative action era is expected to begin at the University of California, Berkeley, with a 52 percent drop in black and Hispanic freshman enrollment, officials said yesterday. In real numbers, of the 3,660 new students who intend to enroll at the state's flagship university, 264 will be Hispanic; 98 will be black. Including American Indians, the total of underrepresented minorities expected to enroll is 376, down from 776 last year.
  

05/21/98; Austin American-Statesman

http://www.austin360.com:80/news/001metro/05may/21/enroll21.htm

• Despite fewer fall enrollment offers to African American and Hispanic students, a greater number of those students accepted an invitation to enroll at the University of Texas than enrolled a year ago, data released this week shows.

05/20/98; Austin American-Statesman

http://www.austin360.com:80/news/002state/05may/15/hopwood15.htm

• Attorney General Dan Morales, who declined to do the job himself, on Thursday allowed the University of Texas to get private lawyers to challenge the Hopwood decision that dismantled affirmative action admissions programs at the state's universities.

05/20/98; San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/05/17/ED91783.DTL

• The GOP just can't get together on affirmative action. Newt Gingrich and a slew of other Republican leaders have all said they're against affirmative action -- yet three times in the past six months, Congress has voted against ending it at a federal level.

05/20/98; New York Times; Nation/Metro

By Tamar Lewin

• In findings that are likely to provide important support for advocates of affirmative action, a six-year study by the Law School Admission Council has found that 61 percent of African-American law school graduates passed the bar exam on their first try, and 78 percent had done so after repeated efforts. Their success rate -- like those of Asian-Americans and American Indians, as well as Mexican-American, Puerto Rican and other Hispanic law school graduates -- was substantially lower than the 92 percent for white graduates taking the bar exam the first time. But the differences were far less extreme than some critics of affirmative action have asserted, according to the study, which was made public Wednesday by the council, an organization in Newtown, Pa., that administers the Law School Admission Test, or LSAT.

05/20/98; New York Times; Nation/Metro

By Karen W. Arenson

• NEW YORK -- A report by the City University of New York says that five colleges, including City College, would lose more than half of their entering students if the university decided to prevent students who did not pass placement tests from enrolling at the four-year colleges. It also projected that colleges like Baruch and Hunter, which have the toughest admissions criteria, would still lose more than a third of their entering students. And it said that minority students would be most affected, with 55 percent of Hispanic students, 51 percent of Asian students and 46 percent of black students kept out of the colleges, compared to 38 percent of white students.

04/08/98;  Education Week on theWeb

http://www.edweek.org/ew/current/30admit.h17

• The number of black, Hispanic, and Native American students accepted to California's two most selective public universities has plummeted for the first undergraduate class covered by a ban on race-based admissions preferences. The University of California, Berkeley, announced last week that 191 black students were accepted for the fall 1998 freshman class, a 64 percent drop from the 562 blacks accepted last year. Last year, 1,266 Hispanic applicants were accepted, compared with 600 Hispanic students accepted this year, for a drop of 53 percent. The 27 American Indians accepted represented a 59 percent decline from last year's total of 69.

04/05/98; LA Times
By James Q. Wilson

http://www.latimes.com:80/CNS_DAYS/980405/t000032368.html

• The best test of college admissions under Proposition 209 is not to consult the headline-grabbing statements of professional advocates, but to carry out a more thorough and careful examination. The University of California system should do three things. First, follow up a sample of all students who apply to find out where they go to college. Second, track carefully the college grades and graduation rates of a sample of minority students to find out how well they do in whatever college they attend. Third, interview a sample of admitted and rejected students to find out how they feel about what happened to them.

04/02/98; Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com:80/dailyglobe/globehtml/091/UC_s_fall_class_in_white__Asian.htm

• At UC Berkeley, which described itself as the most selective public school in the nation, offering admission to 8,034 students out of a record 29,961 applicants, only 191 blacks were admitted for the fall class - a plunge of 66 percent. Admissions for Mexican-Americans, which the university distinguishes from Latino admissions, nose-dived 71 percent, while Latino admissions fell 25 percent. At the same time, Asian and white admissions were little changed.

04/01/98; Houston Chronicle Interactive

http://www.chron.com/cgi-bin/auth/story.mpl/content/chronicle/nation/98/04/01/affirm.2-0.html

• Minority admissions to key campuses of the University of California plunged more than 54 percent this year, the first since the state scrapped affirmative action, according to official figures released Tuesday. The class of 2002 at the University of California-Berkeley, the school's flagship campus, will have more white and Asian faces -- and far fewer black, Hispanic and American Indian ones.

03/17/98; LA Times

http://www.latimes.com:80/HOME/NEWS/STATE/UPDATES/lat_affirm0317.htm

• Offering the first look at University of California undergraduate admissions in the post-affirmative action era, three UC campuses Monday [March 16, 1997] reported drops of up to 45% in the number of blacks and Latinos admitted as freshmen for next fall.

2/25/98; Education Week on the Web
By Charles A. Kiesler

http://www.edweek.com/ew/current/24kiesl.h17

• College-admissions tests are once again in the news. In the wake of recent challenges to campus affirmative action policies have come new criticisms of the tests. Where race and ethnicity have been outlawed as factors that can be considered in admissions, many educators and citizens have become alarmed at the specter of dwindling minority enrollments. Understandably, this has prompted a search for quick solutions, and in the case of the University of California, it has led to a call for the elimination of tests such as the SAT as admissions requirements.

2/24/98; San Fransisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/02/24/ED82341.DTL

• EDITORIAL--The legislation to change admissions criteria and accept the top 4 percent of seniors at each California high school would seriously threaten the academic quality of one of the nation's premier university systems. The proposal, which is being studied by a statewide UC faculty committee, still carries with it the threat to quality without guaranteeing any improvement in ethnic representation.

2/20/98;  San Fransisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/02/20/MN43741.DTL

• A controversial proposal to drop the SAT requirement at the University of California has been shelved, according to the chairman of a faculty committee that oversees admissions at UC's eight undergraduate campuses. During a Board of Regents' meeting in San Francisco , a UC Riverside Professor also signaled faculty support of a plan to guarantee admission to the top 4 percent of graduates from each high school in the state.

2/10/97; Philadelphia Inquirer

http://www.phillynews.com:80/inquirer/98/Feb/10/national/RACE10.htm

• In a first-ever report on the economics of race, the Clinton administration has found that affirmative-action programs adopted by the nation's most prestigious universities have put an increasing number of minority-group members on the road to high-paying jobs.

02/04/98; The San Francisco Chronicle
Pamela Burdman

http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/01/29/MN45831.DTL

• A record number of high school seniors have applied to the University of California for next fall -- and applications by blacks and Mexican Americans also are up, say surprised UC officials who had feared a drop in diversity.

1/27/98; In Motion Magazine

http://www.cts.com/browse/publish/pr.html

• A series of columns dealing with the issue of Affirmative Action.

1/22/98;  The Philadelphia Inquirer
By Stacey Burling

http://www.phillynews.com:80/inquirer/98/Jan/22/city/DOCS22.htm

• Medical school officials are alarmed that declining interest in medical school could derail their efforts to attract more "underrepresented" minority students: African Americans, American Indians, Mexican Americans and mainland Puerto Ricans. Applications from those groups have fallen faster than those of whites and Asians. In four states that have rolled back affirmative-action programs, minority applications declined 17 percent last year.

1/9/98; The San Francisco Examiner
Gregory Lewis

http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/examiner/article.cgi?year=1998&month=01&day=09&article=NEWS2086.dtl

• Former congressman William Gray, head of the United Negro College Fund, says it is too early to know the impact of Proposition 209, the anti-affirmation action law, but he doesn't think it is "good policy for America to resegregate higher education." Gray called Prop. 209, which bars preferential treatment based on race or sex in public employment, education and contracting in California, tragic and "bad policy based on false and, speaking candidly, racist thinking."

12/22/97;  U.S. News

http://www.usnews.com:80/usnews/issue/971222/22upda.htm

• A suit attacking the University of Michigan's admissions policy extends the battle over affirmative action from the graduate level, which has led to dramatically lower minority enrollment in law schools in Texas and California, to the undergraduate level. The suit was filed in federal district court in October by the Center for Individual Rights, which also brought the case against the UT law school and this month filed suit against Michigan's law school. Jennifer Gratz, a lead plaintiff in the undergraduate case, argues that Michigan can set up whatever admissions system it wants "but cannot racially discriminate."

12/15/97;  The Washington Post
By Joan Biskupic

http://washingtonpost.com:80/wp-srv/WPlate/1997-12/15/052l-121597-idx.html

• Today, an institution that was once the salvation of civil rights advocates is a place to be avoided. The recent surprise settlement of the Piscataway, N.J., school teacher case, wrenching the dispute away from the justices, attests to that, as does the collective weight of several recent actions on racial policies. A narrow court majority thinks that taking race into account to break down the patterns of segregation can be as bad as segregation itself.

11/17/97; U.S. News Online
By John Leo

http://www.usnews.com:80/usnews/issue/971124/24john.htm

• There is an assault gathering on good grades, test scores, and nearly all known indicators of merit and academic achievement. Some of this is coming from a philosophy of radical egalitarianism (people must be treated as equal in all matters, regardless of talent or competence). But most of it has been drummed up to protect the excesses of an affirmative action movement in deep trouble with the courts and the American people. Some examples: Lani Guinier has called for a lottery to determine admission to colleges, after minimal qualifications have been met by applicants. The president of the American Bar Association started a pilot project to de-emphasize the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). A few colleges are abandoning use of the SATs, and the Clinton Department of Education is investigating whether the University of California is violating antidiscrimination law by using test scores for graduate school admissions.

11-14-97: The San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/chronicle/article.cgi?file=MN73121.DTL&directory=/chronicle/archive/1997/11/14

• San Francisco superintendent, Bill Rojas, began the 3-day African American Committee on Education Partnership Summit with a long term goal. Rojas has promised that San Francisco will have, "the highest achieveing African American students in an urban district by 1999."

11/11/97; San Francisco Gate; Page 1
Pamela Burdman

http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/chronicle/article.cgi?file=MN28496.DTL&directory=/chronicle/archive/1997/11/11

• Students in California are headed for the SAT exams this year during an intense debate over the very worth of the tests. At the heart of the argument lies the fact that men outscore women, while Asian Americans and whites do better than African Americans and Latinos. Although criticisms of the SAT are hardly new, they are getting louder now that university officials in California and Texas are dismantling affirmative action. Other states are considering similar moves, making the use of standardized admission tests a national concern.

11/10/97; Beacon Journal

http://www.ohio.com:80/bj/news/ohio/docs/005560.htm

• State legislators in Cleveland, Ohio are putting together a proposal that would eliminate affirmative action programs that give preference to people based on race, sex or ethnicity. The plan would end racial or gender preferences in hiring and stop colleges from considering race or sex when awarding scholarships and admission. The proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution will be introduced in the Legislature this week (November 11th, 1997), but voters could get the final say.

11/06/97;  New York Times

http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+iib-site+88+0++%28Houston%29%20OR%20%28affirmative%29%20OR%20%28action%29

• Just one day after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld California's sweeping ban on affirmative action policies, Houston's voters have put a surprising brake on a national movement that has often seemed to have the momentum of an unstoppable freight train. In voting decisively to maintain affirmative-action policies, Houstonians may well have belied the city's conservative image but even more broadly, they offered a window on the complicated feelings that many Americans say they have about the issue. Interviews with voters and an analysis of exit polls indicate the proposal to ban affirmative action here failed because affirmative action supporters kept its opponents from seizing the rhetorical high ground of equal opportunity and civil rights, because Houston's business and political establishment showed a united face in favor of the program and because contemporary Houston is a far more diverse place politically and racially than lingering stereotypes would have it.

11/06/97;  Houston Chronicle Interactive

http://www.chron.com/cgi-bin/auth/story/content/chronicle/page1/97/11/06/analysis.html

• The race for mayor was low-key. The affirmative-action referendum was confusing. Polls told the likely results ahead of time. But something surprising and extraordinary happened in Houston's election anyway. An unexpected explosion of votes from black neighborhoods was the key factor up and down the ballot, from the defeat of an affirmative-action ban to mayoral contender Lee Brown's advantage to the runoffs for City Council seats. Pending a study of each precinct's totals, blacks may have accounted for 35 percent of Tuesday's total turnout, University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray said Wednesday.

11/05/97;  Houston Chronicle Interactive

http://www.chron.com/cgi-bin/auth/story/content/chronicle/page1/97/11/05/minority.html

• Supporters of Houston's affirmative action contracting program defeated efforts to abolish it Tuesday in a local referendum carrying national implications. In complete but unofficial election returns, supporters of the city program claimed 54.5 percent of the vote, leaving opponents -- those backing Proposition A -- with 45 percent. The closely watched decision on Proposition A is the first of its kind since California voters approved a similar measure last year. At stake in the local referendum is a 1995 city policy setting a 20 percent goal for inclusion of women and minority-owned firms in city contracting.

11/05/97;  Education Week on the Web

http://www.edweek.org/htbin/fastweb?getdoc+view4+ew1997+1729+1+wAAA+%26%28Latest%26Testing%26Compromise%26Appears%26Doomed%29%26AND%26%28Latest%26Testing%26Compromise%26Appears%26Doomed%29%3AKEYWORDS%26OR%26%28Latest%26Testing%26Compromise%26Appears%26Doo

• Without affirmative action, even the most valiant efforts of admissions officers will not keep many colleges and universities from losing much of their Hispanic and black populations, educators who gathered here at the College Board's annual meeting concluded last week. Responding to recent challenges to the use of racial preferences in college admissions in states such as California and Texas, several educators described their efforts to maintain campus diversity without affirmative action. For example, when deciding which students will be admitted to next year's freshman class, Berkeley's admissions officers will now read applications and essays two times, and consider what a studenthas done to overcome the obstacles he or she may have experienced, in addition to examining test scores and grade-point averages, Mr. Hayashi said.

11/04/97; San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/chronicle/article.cgi?file=MN4673.DTL&directory=/chronicle/archive/1997/11/04

• The constitutional conflict over Proposition 209 ended abruptly on Monday, November 3rd, 1997, when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to the anti-affirmative action initiative, but the legal battles over race-based programs in California are just getting started.

11/04/97; LA Times

http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/NATION/topstory.html

• California's battle over affirmative actionwas splintered into thousands of local and statejurisdictions on November 3, 1997 by the U.S. Supreme Court action thatended a historic legal challenge to Proposition 209. Throughout the state, city council members, supervisors and special district officials turned to their lawyers and administrators to examine the next step of dismantling programs that consider race or gender in government hiring, contracting or school admissions.

10/23/97; San Fransico Examiner

http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/examiner/article.cgi?year=1997&month=10&day=23&article=NEWS10042.dtl

• UC-Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law is defying Proposition 209 by using its alumni association to provide scholarships for minorities and women students, charged an Albany lawyer who sued UC.

10/21/97; LA Times

http://www.latimes.com:80/CNS_DAYS/971021/t000094502177.html

• A bus carrying a coalition led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson on Monday rolled into South-Central Los Angeles, part of a statewide tour designed to build political opposition to Proposition 209, which outlawed state government affirmative action programs.

09/04/97;

http://allpolitics.com/1997/09/04/prop.209/

• On September 4th, 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request for a stay that would have put on hold California's Proposition 209, the new law eliminating affirmative action preferences.

08/28/97; The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1997-08/28/117l-082897-idx.html

• On August 28th, 1997, after nearly a year-long battle in the courts, California began implementing the controversial new law-- Proposition 209.

05/15/96; Los Angeles Times

http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/projects/aa/docs/latimes1.html

• By 2050, census projections show, the United States will be scarcely more than half white. Thus the workers, managers and entrepreneurs who must carry the nation's economy increasingly will come from the minority population. The better educated this population is, the more bounteous the benefits for all.

Web sites relevant to Proposition 209

http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/projects/aa/pages/news.html#chronology

• This page contains news updates and a chronological record of some of the major events surrounding the passage of California Proposition 209.

http://www.patterson-uncf.org/dbook.html

• This link leads to the 1997 African American Education Databook. Data were compiled from numerous databases and are meant to describe the status, performance, progress, and financial support of African Americans in higher education. Altogether, the data and information presented in this volume represent the most comprehensive description ever compiled about African Americans in postsecondary education.

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