State civil rights initiatives challenged
Finally some good news in stemming the tide against the sham civil rights initiatives that started with the passage of California’s Proposition 209 in 1996. Similar initiatives passed by Michigan in 2006 and Nebraska in 2008 prohibit using race as a factor in government hiring or contracting, and public schools with simply-worded ballot measures under the guise of “civil rights” initiatives.
According to the National Law Journal, a state appellate court has ruled that Berkeley’s plan to consider racial makeup of a neighborhood does not violate Proposition 209. In a separate ruling, the California Supreme Court has asked the state Attorney General for an opinion as to whether Prop 209 violates federal equal protection laws as part of litigation over San Francisco’s public contracting program.
These initiatives have functioned as Trojan horses against civil rights because they sound philosophically appealing to voters who don’t understand the ramifications of implementing them. They leave state and local governments without tools like affirmative action or minority business programs to mitigate racial discrimination problems, and don’t even allow the government to gather statistics or conduct research needed to determine whether there may be a problem in the first place. This effectively makes racial discrimination permissible because it is now illegal to even gather evidence to make your case. Fortunately the voters of Colorado figured this out and defeated a similar initiative in 2008.
Proposition 209 has hurt California’s schools, government, and business community. If the courts don’t overturn it, the voters should.
For more information, see the Ethnicmajority civil rights and affirmative action pages.
