Lockdown! Economic Collapse! What Should We Do? Let’s Reinstitute Racial Preferences!
[guest post by JVW]
Lost amid the Golden State’s struggles with COVID-19 and the lockdown-driven economic collapse comes word that the California Legislature wants to place an initiative on this November’s election ballot which would lift the prohibition on racial preferences imposed by the passage of Proposition 209 nearly a quarter-century ago. Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5 has the lone virtue of being direct and easy to understand: it simply deletes all of the language found in Article I, Section 31 of the California Constitution which had been added by the passage of Prop 209. This is, of course, the part which promised: “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.”
Those of us who were here 24 years ago probably remember the fierce debate surrounding the adoption of race-neutral preferences statewide. Contrary to how we might remember it, the battle to change the UC admissions policy had been won the previous year when the UC Board of Regents, led by Ward Connerly, voted to end racial preferences in admissions to the UC campuses, a decision that had roiled the state’s academic and civil rights establishments and had national reverberations. Prop. 209 codified the UC Regents’ action into state law and extended preference bans across all of the public education landscape as well as to public employment and contracting. Thus, six years later when a new left-wing majority of UC Regents ostentatiously voted to lift the prohibition on admissions preferences, the UC system was still stymied by state law established by Prop. 209.
There is a great deal to deride about the legislature’s latest attempt to re-fight yesterday’s battles. As the title of this post indicates, this hardly qualifies as a pressing issue when the state faces massive health and economic disasters. Debating the issue right now when everyone else’s attention is drawn to dozens of other higher-priority news items seems rather cowardly to me. And introducing a very contentious debate — even in a one-party state — at a time that screams out for cooperation and fellowship is an extremely tone-deaf move suggesting that the obsession with the culture wars takes a backseat to nothing where the social justice left is concerned.
But worst of all is that there is no indication that this fight would necessarily right many wrongs. Because Prop. 209 exempted preference programs that were required by a court decree or mandated by federal legislation, its effect upon public hiring and contracting was minimal. The real action all along as been in university admissions, especially the highly-selective UC schools. Peter Kirsanow over at National Review Online has done excellent work in tracing the post-affirmative action history at these campuses. He points out that while it is true that the enrollment of black and Latino students (those two groups along with Native Americans are slotted into a special “underrepresented minority” category so that diversity commissars have an excuse to ignore Asian-Americans) admitted to UC campuses fell dramatically in the aftermath of the ban on preferences, those numbers have consistently risen over the past quarter-century so that today they are larger than they were the year in the final year of legalized preferences, both in the total number of black and Latino students admitted to those campuses and the overall percentage of blacks and Latinos in the student body. In addition, the graduation rate for those groups has risen substantially, with today’s four-year graduation rate far better than the rate of the preferences era.
While it’s true that the underrepresented minority admissions rate at the two most selective campuses, Berkeley and UCLA, has not yet recovered to pre-ban levels, increased admissions among these groups at the other five UC campuses is more than picking up the slack. It’s certainly true that we should encourage the top students of all races and ethnicities to aspire to admission at our most selective institutions, but not at the expense of putting them in a situation where they will be surrounded by peers who are far better prepared for the rigors of college life. This was the point that UCLA professor Richard Sander and co-author Stuart Taylor made in their 2012 book Mismatch: that a student who might struggle to keep up at Berkeley would perhaps find the educational atmosphere far more manageable at, for example, UC Merced, so we are in fact doing her a disservice when we throw her into the academic maelstrom all in the name of increasing diversity at an elite campus.
The big question is how Asian Democrats will react to a reimposition of admissions preferences. Six years ago a group of black and Latino legislators undertook this same effort to undo Prop. 209, but the objections of their Asian-American legislative colleagues and advocacy groups forced them to back down. Back then, Jerry Brown probably wasn’t too keen on running for reelection with such a divisive proposition on the ballot, especially in a year when it was expected Republicans would have a strong turn-out nationally. But today, California Democrats have made great strides in co-opting Asian-Americans, partly by forgiving them for being so successful as long as they can count on their votes. This is an issue that will certainly affect Asian-Americans more so than any other racial or ethnic group: they make up about 15% of the population of the state, yet account for nearly 40% of UC enrollees. With the GOP prepared to run some Asian-American candidates for state legislative and Congressional seats this fall, Golden State Democrats might end up regretting choosing this particular moment to have this particular fight.
– JVW
The bill was introduced in January 2019 and hasn’t made it out of committee yet.
Dave (1bb933) — 5/18/2020 @ 6:28 pmHere’s the numbers on applications versus admissions at the UC system:
Asian-Americans: 27.26% of applicant pool, 39.72% of enrolled students
Latinos: 26.82% of applicant pool, 25.45% of enrolled students
African-Americans: 5.58% of applicant pool, 3.87% of enrolled students
I’m sure that there are some multi-racial students in that survey and there would be a small sliver for Native Americans, so that would leave whites with something like 33-38% of the applicants and 23-28% of enrolled students. I’m sure those numbers exist somewhere, but the op-ed piece linked above doesn’t cite their source. Regardless, however, I think these numbers demonstrate pretty conclusively that any artificial rise in the number of black and Latino students will almost certainly come at the expense of Asian-American students.
JVW (54fd0b) — 5/18/2020 @ 6:32 pmIt would appear that they are passing around the bill from committee to committee while they figure out if they can pass it out of the Assembly without splitting the caucus too badly. In other words, are the Asian-American legislators once again able to put the brakes on. But given the party’s super-majorities in both the assembly and senate, given the leftward lurch of the state’s Democrats, and given the demands of the social justice left in the age of Trump, this legislation just might have legs. It’s now up to 11 sponsors in the assembly and three sponsors in the senate.
JVW (54fd0b) — 5/18/2020 @ 6:40 pmIt’s what government does instead of something. At least they’re not ranting about 60 Minutes on Twitter.
nk (1d9030) — 5/18/2020 @ 6:48 pmIt’s what government does instead of something.
I would rather they play Freecell on their state-property laptops or have lunch with lobbyists. Seriously. Even if they are working on legislation that has very little chance of coming to fruition, they are simply stoking the embers of resentment that further tribalizes us. To me, a do-nothing legislature is far better than one who takes actions in a grossly insincere and cynical manner.
I mean, how hard can this be? You simply go around to everyone in the assembly and senate and say to them, “Will you support us in overturning Prop 209?” You tally up the votes and determine if causing the fissures in your caucus is worth pursuing this policy goal. If it is, then you go forward. If not, then you shelve it. This isn’t complex legislation which can be massaged and horse-traded to win support; it’s a simple question of whether or not we should go to status quo ante Prop 209. Drafting the bill and then working it through committee only to abandon it at the end would be a remarkably cynical ploy, even for California Democrats.
JVW (54fd0b) — 5/18/2020 @ 7:15 pmOn thr bright side: you got to post about something that has nothing to do with Covid19 or Trump.
Kishnevi (f0a3aa) — 5/18/2020 @ 7:41 pm“COVID-19” is the eighth word of the post…
;p
Dave (1bb933) — 5/18/2020 @ 8:07 pmWhile funding handouts to illegal aliens, Governor Newsom demands taxpayer dollars from the federal government or he is going to make sure first responders lose their jobs, but not his bloated government offices.
What a POS.
https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/may/18/gavin-newsom-first-responders-first-ones-laid-off-/
NJRob (4d0255) — 5/18/2020 @ 8:15 pmNJRob, you’re 100% right. That kind of game playing is all too typical. Run out of money on all kinds of optional things, then say you need more for the couple of things everyone actually needed.
Dustin (d59cff) — 5/18/2020 @ 8:49 pmAll the governors who are asking for money on TV (mysteriously, I’ve only seen Democratic governors asking for money on TV) are saying that. For the reason Dustin said.
Kishnevi (9a9ca3) — 5/18/2020 @ 8:53 pmIn Grutter v Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003), Justice O’Connor, writing for the majority, concluded:
The decision was announced on June 23, 2003, which means that 25 years will be up on June 23, 2028. That the Constitution’s equal protection clause could just be suspended for 25 years is repugnant, but it should — though it probably won’t — mean that racial preferences in public education will no longer be legal eight years from now.
The Dana in Kentucky (c226e5) — 5/19/2020 @ 5:48 amEgalitarianism is for the mediocre. “It’s not fair!” cried no winner ever.
On that point, this is the time to cull the academic herd of its runts, but they won’t do it. They’ll go on trying to make silk purses out of sows’ ears.
nk (1d9030) — 5/19/2020 @ 6:42 amnk wrote:
No, they’ll just mint Doctors of Social Welfare and put them in charge of major counties’ health departments.
That there’s even such a thing as a Doctor of Social Welfare points to the problem.
The Dana in Kentucky (c931a0) — 5/19/2020 @ 6:48 amAs an old boomer, I say to other white guys: “Pull up the ladder” because hurting other whites is a good thing. Makes you feel virtuous AND lowers the price of labor. Love that illegal and legal immigration too.
rcocean (2e1c02) — 5/19/2020 @ 6:58 amI still remember my surprise at seeing ‘Bury Bakke!!’ buttons being worn by some of my Asian-American friends in the late 70s and asking them ‘you sure about that?’.
harkin (8f4a6f) — 5/19/2020 @ 7:10 am_
UT Austin will reopen at the originally scheduled date in late August and hold classes until Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving, all classes and tests will be remote.
DRJ (15874d) — 5/21/2020 @ 8:26 amBecause this lockdown is about power, its not about health or the more vulnerable would have been protected.
Narciso (7404b5) — 5/21/2020 @ 8:31 am