WORLD on Campus

Search WORLD on campus  

Hot on Campus | February 21, 2012

Affirmative action backers look to overturn ban

Education

Proposition 209, a 1996 initiative banning affirmative action in California, was challenged last week

ASSOCIATED PRESS/PHOTO BY PAUL SAKUMA

A recent court hearing brought California's 15-year-old affirmative action ban back in the spotlight, with opponents claiming it hinders certain minority groups from attending the state's prestigious universities.

Hundreds of minority students protested last week outside a San Francisco courtroom where a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments against Proposition 209, the landmark voter initiative that banned state and local agencies from considering race or gender in hiring and education.

Citing the low percentage of black, Latino, and Native American students at prestigious UC campuses, affirmative action backers asked judges to overturn the ban, which they say has caused the "resegregation of higher education."

However Proposition 209 has withstood multiple legal challenges since its approval in 1996, including a 1997 ruling by the same appellate court. The California Supreme Court has twice ruled that the race-neutral measure is constitutional.

Opponents of the ban said their latest campaign is bolstered by recent favorable court rulings in other states and support from Gov. Jerry Brown, who joined the plaintiffs in arguing that the ban is unconstitutional.

Ralph Kasarda, who is defending Proposition 209, called the latest legal challenge "redundant and baseless," saying judges have correctly upheld the ban.

"If there is any discrimination going on in UC schools, this would violate Proposition 209 - it's meant to create a fair playing field for all races," said Kasarda, an attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation who represented the sponsors of the ballot measure in 1996.

Last week's hearing came after dozens of minority students and advocacy groups filed a complaint in January 2010 saying Proposition 209 violates the civil rights of black, Latino, and Native American students. The panel agreed to hear the case after U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti dismissed the lawsuit in December 2010.

The 55 plaintiffs claimed that while these minority groups make up half of the state's high school graduates, they are underrepresented at California's elite universities. For example, at UC Berkeley, the current freshmen class of California residents is roughly 1 percent Native American, 3.5 percent black, 15 percent Latino, 30 percent white and 48 percent Asian, according to UC data.

"What you see before you is a new form of separate and unequal going on right before our eyes," plaintiffs' attorney George Washington told the three male justices.

But Judge A. Wallace Tashima said at the hearing that based on the previous rulings, these arguments are "water under the bridge."

The panel will issue a written ruling at a later date, but Tashima said opponents can ask the full appeals court for a new hearing, a request the court rejected in 1997.

Bill Whalen, senior research fellow at Standford University's Hoover Institute believes getting rid of the affirmative action ban won't solve the problem: "One should be sympathetic about the low numbers of these minority groups in UC schools, but the problem is not with admissions, it's with the K-12 education they are receiving."

The Associated Press contributed to this report. This story first appeared on WORLD California.