Proposition 16 and the Need for Race-Conscious Policies in California
Reversing California’s outright ban on affirmative action will permit consideration of policies necessary to curb racial inequities in California. The immediate need for these policies is evident in K-12 education.
The recent Black Lives Matter protests are helping many to recognize the continued vast inequities in this country. Though they focus on, and are prompted by, the interactions of police with Black citizens, these protests and the movement generally for racial justice goes beyond policing because our entire country is rife with institutionalized inequality. Californians have a unique opportunity this election to further the goal of these protests and continue dismantling structural discrimination in our own state. By passing Proposition 16, California could begin to consider necessary race-conscious policies to help redress our vast historical failings.
Proposition 16 would undo Proposition 209 that prohibited consideration of race in all public areas. Passed in 1996 as the “California Civil Rights Initiative,” Proposition 209 amended California’s constitution to eliminate discrimination or the grant of preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, or religion in public employment, education, or contracting. Promoted by Gov. Pete Wilson who was then seeking the Republican nomination for president, the proposition’s proponents sought to leverage the raging debate over affirmative action. As one commenter has recently noted, voters in 1996 thought “ending affirmative action would hasten the arrival of a color-blind society. As recent events have shown, that day clearly has not arrived.”
The problem with “race-neutral” or “color-blind” policies is they maintain the status quo. When there is a legacy of racism, as is undeniable in the United States, the status quo is inequality. Anti-affirmative action sentiment is often based on the mythology of racial progress, believing opportunity has equalized for all people, regardless of race. This is simply not true. For example, survey respondents in 2016 believed the median wealth of a Black family was 50% of the median wealth of a white family in 1963 and 90% in 2016, but in reality the relative wealth was 5% in 1963 and still only 10% in 2016. This mythology of progress has been a primary reason for the Supreme Court recently invalidating voting rights protections and severely limiting the ability to consider race in higher education, epitomized by Chief Justice Robert’s statement in one case “[t]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” But this flawed thinking, which also prompted Proposition 209, only protects discrimination as we are still far from the dream of the civil rights movement.
California is not an exception. Race-conscious policies are very much needed in California to counteract entrenched racial disparities. One clear example is in K-12 education. California students of color are often relegated to schools with limited resources, dramatically hampering future opportunities for success. Though Brown v. Board of Education outlawed segregation by law, it did not outlaw segregation occurring indirectly from historically discriminatory housing practices and economic forces. These forces have rendered California one of the most segregated states in the country, and it is only getting worse. The proportion of intensely segregated schools in California doubled between 1993 and 2012. By 2012, one in fourteen schools were considered “apartheid” schools, where 99%-100% of students are students of color. (See UCLA’s Civil Rights Project’s in-depth report for a full analysis.)
Racial segregation is “harmful because it concentrates minority students in high-poverty schools, which are, on average, less effective than lower-poverty schools.” Funding is a big part of this. Though California lawmakers have provided funds specifically for high-need students, funding remains unequal. This is due, in part, because California school districts can keep property tax revenues exceeding their respective revenue limits, and about a quarter of California schools’ funding comes from local property taxes. This results in diminished funding for students of color because the typical California “[B]lack or Latino student attends a school where 70 percent of students are poor.” Low-income schools also have higher absenteeism, resulting in further funding reductions. And this is all in addition to California already being 41st in per-pupil spending.
California students, but especially those of color, are simply not getting the resources they need to succeed, and this is surely only going to worsen from the COVID-19 pandemic and a further reduction in tax revenues. California’s segregation enabled by race-neutral policies is therefore directly inhibiting these students’ future.
Race-conscious policies are an effective means to rectify this harm. San Francisco highlights the consequences of segregation and benefits of race-conscious desegregation. San Francisco was under a desegregation consent decree from 1982 until 2005. The decree utilized race-conscious policies, requiring “no school could have fewer than four racial/ethnic groups represented in its student body, and no racial/ethnic group could constitute more than forty-five percent of the student enrollment at any regular school.” However, the district removed the race-conscious aspects in part because of the passage of Proposition 209.
After the district lifted the race-conscious desegregation requirement, schools rapidly resegregated. The team overseeing the decree, as detailed by a team member, “found that the performance level at many severely resegregated schools dropped dramatically during the post-1999 resegregation.” In contrast, the team found “schools which have been most successful at closing persistent achievement gaps are ones that have maintained substantially racially and ethnically diverse student populations.” Though causation could not be firmly established, for “African American and Latino Children, the evidence of a link between segregation and academic performance was both dramatic and striking. The numbers are indisputable, and they tell a story that is impossible to ignore.”
Desegregation’s benefits are not limited to students of color as all Californian students will benefit from a more diverse educational environment. The Civil Rights Project at UCLA concluded a “half-century of desegregation research shows the major costs of segregation and the variety of benefits of schools that are attended by all races.” In desegregated schools test scores aren’t lower based on the skin color of peers, students work harder and smarter, and they may become more empathetic and less prejudiced.
Race-conscious policies, such as desegregation, by themselves will not singlehandedly equalize opportunity for all California students. But not permitting policymakers to consider race unnecessarily ties their hands in dealing with a historically intractable problem and ignores a main issue: the legacy of racism. Disallowing considerations of race is like renovating a house without addressing the cracked foundation.
Californians have an opportunity to help repair our state’s cracked foundation. I implore all Californians to join Senator and Vice Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris, Senator Diane Feinstein, Governor Gavin Newsom, 30 California congresspersons, and dozens of other elected officials and community groups in voting “Yes” on Proposition 16. It is time we do what is necessary to make California a more equitable state.
