Does California Governor Gavin Newsom, the product of the “four San Francisco families – the Browns, the Newsoms, the Pelosis and the Gettys” that have dominated California politics for decades, need more power? Assembly Constitutional Amendment 7, which Scott reported on here last week, will do just that. There’s more to the backstory that should be known.
The California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), Proposition 209 on the 1996 ballot, eliminated racial and ethnic preferences in state education, employment and contracting. Californians passed Prop 209 by a margin of 54.55 to 45.45. As with the tax-limiting Proposition 13, the state ruling class fought it from the start.
In 2012, state senator Edward Hernandez introduced Senate Constitutional Amendment 5, to allow voters to consider elimination of CCRI’s ban on race and ethnic preferences. Olivia Liao, president of the Joint Chinese University Alumni Association, flagged SCA-5 as discriminatory and argued for admissions “based on merit.” The amendment was withdrawn in 2014 but the preference forces weren’t giving up.
The 2020 Proposition 16 would have eliminated the 1996 preference ban but voters rejected it by a margin of 57.23 to 42.77, wider than the vote for Proposition 209 in 1996. Despite that thrashing, the preference forces weren’t giving up. Enter Assembly Constitutional Amendment 7.
The measure does not openly target Proposition 209 for repeal but allows the governor to make “research-based,” or “research-informed,” exceptions to the 1996 law. On the basis of undefined “research,” the governor could decide that racial preferences and unequal treatment are good things. In effect, the measure would establish white governor supremacy, for no good reason.
After CCRI, as Thomas Sowell noted in Intellectuals and Race, declines in minority enrollment at UCLA and UC Berkeley were offset by increases at other UC campuses. The number of African-American and Hispanic students graduating from the UC system went up, including a 55 percent increase in those graduating in four years with a GPA of 3.5 or higher.
Contrary to opponents, CCRI did not eliminate “affirmative action.” The state could still lend a hand on an economic basis, and California has always cast the widest possible net. The great Jackie Robinson, for example, was an alum of Pasadena City College, founded in 1924.
In 1939, Robinson enrolled at UCLA and in 1954, future Olympic decathlon champion Rafer Johnson attended UCLA on both athletic and academic scholarships. In 1968, Johnson teamed with NFL vet Roosevelt Grier to tackle Robert F. Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan. Johnson passed away in 2020 along with economist Walter Williams and football great Paul Hornung.
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