Yes on 16!

African American Californians… residents from other underrepresented communities… women… and true advocates of equity, justice, civil rights and human rights have an opportunity on Nov. 3 to correct an historic stain on the otherwise fairly progressive reputation of our state. 

A Yes on Proposition 16 vote would effectively repeal Proposition 209, the statewide ban on the use of affirmative action in California nearly a quarter of a century after its passage in 1996. By restoring affirmative action to the state, Proposition 16 would allow California to rejoin the 41 states in the country that continue to use this tool to ensure equal access to public resources such as education, jobs and business contracts. 

Contrary to the false, divisive, and deceptive campaign being waged by its opponents, Yes on 16 would enable California to use affirmative action as 80 percent of the states in the country still do― to correct  historic and current discrimination. 

Conversely, Proposition 209, by banning affirmative action, has extended the lifespan of systemic inequality, underrepresentation, unequal access, and an uneven playing field for marginalized communities in California. The effort to correct this miscarriage of civil rights justice has been tireless and consistent over the past 25 years since it began. 

Legitimate equity and justice advocates have challenged the implementation of the ban at the institutional level, in the state legislature and in both state and federal court. But we learned that a statewide proposition is a difficult barrier to overcome. 

The best option, all along, has been to get an equal and opposite proposition on the ballot, organize a statewide constituency and mobilize the resources for a successful campaign – a tall order indeed.  

This most recent effort involving students, equal rights activists and state legislators has succeeded in getting a corrective measure on the ballot. Ensuring the passage of Proposition 16 is a generational imperative. We have got to get this done.

From the start, the effort to ban affirmative action in California made a mockery of the civil rights and social justice movements of the past, giving California an unsightly wart on its otherwise progressive profile. Conservative former California governor, Pete Wilson, installed an unknown African American “businessman” named Ward Connerly on the University of California Board of Regents to help engineer a policy ending “racial preferences” in admissions, hiring and contracting in the nation’s largest and most prominent higher education system. 

This Reagan-era word-play used to denigrate and corrupt efforts to achieve equal representation and equal access, was useful in 1995 in pushing a policy through an elite appointed-policy-making body despite massive student and community protests and advocacy. But as Wilson and his allies sought to extend this assault on equal rights to all public institutions across the state, that language would surely expose their true intention of unraveling diversity policy and practice in a “progressive-leaning’ state. 

The statewide measure to ban affirmative action that was ultimately placed on the ballot the following year in 1996 was deceptively named the California Civil Rights Initiative. It was in fact an anti-equal rights, anti-civil rights policy proposal designed to halt progress in diversifying the state’s education, health, government, law enforcement and other public agencies and institutions. 

The misleading and dishonest campaign conducted on its behalf adopted, grossly distorted and outright ridiculed the intent, language and imagery of the civil rights movements. Its most egregious violation was the use of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s voice and image in promoting Prop 209 as an advancement in equal rights that King would have championed. Such devious misrepresentation would not have been necessary if the backers of Prop 209 thought it would be approved on its own merits and sincere intent..

Organized opposition to Proposition 209 consisted primarily of organized students on the campuses of the University of California. In some local areas, students organized with community-based organizations and elected officials to educate and encourage voters to see beyond the equal rights façade propped up by the Pete Wilson-driven anti-affirmative action legislation. There were some small, modestly funded, voter education campaigns such as the one run by the organization, AGENDA, in South Los Angeles. But there was no organized, coordinated statewide No on 209 campaign. As a result, the destructive, anti-civil rights, anti-equal rights deceptively-named “California Civil Rights Initiative campaign succeeded. 

California was weakened not only in its ability to achieve equity and diversity, but in many ways, it was robbed of its will to do so. The very notion of advocating for, let alone working towards, equity and diversity became frowned upon. 

This attack on civil rights and the misleading promotional campaign that fueled it, was duplicated in several states with nine states eventually establishing similar state statutes. The Hopwood v. Texas decision became the first successful legal challenge to a university’s affirmative action policy in student admissions since Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. This decision was later overturned by the US Supreme Court.

Since the passage of Proposition 209, there have been consistent efforts to address its devastating impact on college admissions, governmental agency hiring and business contracting. Massive protests were held on University of California campuses in 1998 as Proposition 209 was initially implemented. 

Among these were the Days of Defiance protests at UCLA led by the Afrikan Student Union, which many faculty described as the largest on campus since the 1960s. In 2001, UC students came together across the 10-campus system and successfully advocated for the Repeal of Standing Policies 1 and 2, the UC system’s internal policy banning affirmative action, that preceded Proposition 209. 

This largely symbolic victory, nevertheless represented a blow to the race blind equality narrative. In 2006, the Los Angeles-based Alliance for Equal Opportunity in Education, which included both the UCLA Afrikan Student Union and the UCLA Black Alumni Association launched a campaign to increase African American admissions at UCLA and across the UC system. 

UCLA’s efforts to reverse the trend of declining admissions of underrepresented minority students, including revisions in its admissions policy and increased outreach efforts, initiated a wave of similar measures at virtually every UC campus. Parallel measures were undertaken at the system-wide level. 

In 2013, Alliance members joined a broader statewide coalition and equal rights and education advocacy groups around the country in supporting a Federal appeals court decision to strike down Michigan’s version of Proposition 209, Proposition 2. Although that Appeals Court decision was overturned by the US Supreme Court, it was a significant moment in the movement to restore affirmative action in the state of California because it took the effort to a new level. 

Yes on 16, generated through the combined efforts of Black students from UC Berkeley, Assemblymember Shirley Weber, her Assembly colleagues and a broad coalition of diverse community-based organizations representing all ethnic and racial groups and women, is the culmination of these prior campaigns. 

Yes on 16 represents a unique opportunity to right the wrong that was Proposition 209, and expose the deceptive, divisive actions of the anti-affirmative action remnants of the Pete Wilson administration. Yes on 16 seeks to restore progress toward civil and equal rights in California. 

Yes on 16 would bring California in line with the vast majority of US states, which still recognize the need for measures to help achieve diversity and the inclusion of African Americans and other underrepresented groups. 

Yes on 16 is timely as it is on the ballot during a time of hugely significant health and environmental conditions, social justice movements and electoral contests in which African Americans and other underrepresented communities have a disproportionately high stake. We must make every effort to ensure Passage of Proposition 16.