Prop. 16 Would Bring Affirmative Action Back To California, Critics Say It's Not Necessary

Speaker 1: 00:00 We spoke earlier today about a landmark reparations bill authored by assemblywoman, Shirley Webber and signed into law yesterday. By governor Newsome on this November's ballot, voters will consider another proposal from San Diego assembly. Woman Webber proposition 16 is asking California voters to bring affirmative action back to public schools and government work. California eliminated the policy in 1996 by passing another proposition prop two Oh nine KPBS reporter Shalina Chatwani explains that supporters of prop 16, say it would help balance the scales, but some critics say it could hurt in the 1950s when she was a young girl assembly woman, Shirley Weber's family, moved from hope, Arkansas to Los Angeles. They had to her father, a sharecropper had a target on his back. Speaker 2: 00:51 It was going to be lynched. The talk in the town was that he was one of these uppity Negroes. He fought for himself Speaker 1: 00:57 Here on the San Diego state university campus. Weber recalls how she escaped persecution and eventually helped start SDSU Africana studies department. She was driven by her desire to work hard and fight like her father. But she had held, Speaker 2: 01:12 I went to grad school because I was a black student. So that was an affirmative action program for a poor kid like me. Speaker 1: 01:18 It says when California banned affirmative action in 1996, poor underserved minorities were left behind because state institutions could not develop programs specifically for them. Speaker 2: 01:29 We can't develop a teacher training and a program of recruitment for new teachers based on race. And the improvement of my schools is contingent upon getting teachers who understand the kids. Speaker 1: 01:38 It's proposition 16 asked voters to strike the non-discrimination language in the state's constitution. But critics say that won't help with inequality. In the years, following the civil rights movement, affirmative action was seen as a next step to reverse centuries of racism, but California passed proposition two Oh nine, which said public institutions and government work should grant no preferential treatment based on race, sex, ethnicity, or national origin. Yeah, Speaker 3: 02:05 No, you can't give preferential treatment to one group without discriminating against another group. Speaker 1: 02:11 Gail Harriet is a professor of law at the university of San Diego. She says she's one of the lead donors to the no on prop 16 campaign. We met at her home in Kensington, Speaker 3: 02:25 Go cold Turkey. You're not going to fix things by saying, well, we used to discriminate this way. Now let's discriminate that Speaker 1: 02:33 The yes on prop 16 campaign are use recent protest against police brutality reflect how law enforcement treats black and Brown people differently from white people. But Harriet says you can't solve discrimination with discrimination. Speaker 3: 02:48 It just perpetuates it forever. Speaker 1: 02:50 He says underserved communities have done better. It's true. The UC California system has seen an increase in students of color since 1999. The percentage of Latinos has doubled and the black population has gone up by just under one percentage point. She says, it's not helpful. When students are admitted into schools, they aren't prepared to compete at. It's a good thing. When students attend colleges where their academic credentials put them in the ballpark with the rest of the students, but there are still disparities while Latinos and blacks make up around 46% of California's population. They're only a third of the undergrad, UC California system. Autumn Arnett says that's because with or without affirmative action, we live in a racist society. Speaker 4: 03:35 We're not really good at acknowledging who we were discriminating against Speaker 1: 03:38 Independent education equity researcher in Austin, Texas. Speaker 4: 03:42 So we know that across industries, whether education or employment that white women have been the greatest beneficiaries of affirmative action, Speaker 1: 03:50 1995, California Senate committee study found that after decades of affirmative action, it was white women who ended up gaining most managerial jobs, not the people of color who were supposed to be eligible Speaker 4: 04:02 Black and Brown people have still not been able to seeing their levels of representation, increase proportion to their population numbers. Speaker 1: 04:11 And that says, it's one thing to create a policy, to give people of color, more opportunities, but once they get to school or get to the job, they have to be given the support to succeed. Speaker 4: 04:21 People are absolutely getting more opportunities, right? You absolutely can't say whites only college. That attractors though, are that maybe we didn't help. The people that we set out to help as much as we needed to our nets Speaker 1: 04:34 Was real progress can only happen when everyone commits to moving toward a more equitable society, backers of prop 16, say passing the proposition doesn't mean the work is done, but it's certainly a start opponents say affirmative action is a necessary. And the work to level the playing field is already happening. Joining me is KPBS reporter Shalina Chatwani and Shalina welcome to the program. Speaker 4: 05:00 Hey, glad to be here. What would it be Speaker 1: 05:03 Prop 16 actually do, I mean, does it outline how affirmative action programs should work in schools Speaker 4: 05:10 In government? So what prop 16 would do is to revoke proposition two zero nine, the California constitution. So that is explicitly what it would actually do. Um, so prop two Oh nine was a response, um, in 1996, by the California legislature to affirmative action, um, voters overwhelmingly over 50% of voters decided that it would be better than having preferential treatment based on race, gender, national origin, ethnicity, to instead say, you know what, we're going to be color blind. We're going to be sex blind and no public institutions. And no universities should consider these factors at all in their recruiting or admissions processes or work hiring processes. So what this specifically would do is reverse the prop two Oh nine ban on affirmative action and allow institutions to develop programs based on preferential treatment for race, but more so to target people of color or women specifically in hiring and recruiting processes. Speaker 4: 06:25 Now, since the expert you interviewed says the old affirmative action programs did not primarily benefit people of color. Why does supporters of prop 16? Think this time it will. Yes. So the argument is a little bit more nuanced than that. So the expert says affirmative action was absolutely helpful in the sense that it did help people of color because people in the country could no longer say, okay, whites only college or male only college, or we want to hire white men specifically in this firm that became illegal to do that was the thing you could not do anymore. And that's in that came after the civil rights movement, because we recognized that we didn't go far enough to just say, Hey, you D you should desegregate because the human nature at the time was to remain segregated. And so formative actions to say, you know what? Speaker 4: 07:23 You absolutely just cannot do that. So it did help people of color. But the experts point is to say we very much do still live in a racist society that does give preferential treatment to a white men in particular and, and white people in general. And so what did end up happening with affirmative action is that, uh, you know, one study said that, you know, it was white women in the end who ended up gaining most of the managerial jobs in California, not the people of color who it was intended for, but they did gave more managerial jobs. So there was a higher net benefit, but more of that net benefit went to white women. And that would also check out in, in college applications as well is the main concern of people who oppose prop 16. The main concern is essentially a reverse discrimination argument, which is that if you give preferential treatment to one race, you essentially are discriminating against other races. Speaker 4: 08:31 Or if you give preferential treatment to one gender, you're discriminating against another gender. And so the argument is you can't solve discrimination with discrimination, um, because you can't have an equal society. The concern among members of the Asian American community, that affirmative action will decrease the number of spots open to them at elite schools. What is that argument? Yeah. So there's a lot of Asian Americans that are part of the, no on prop 16 base who say admissions into college, um, and recruiting into high level jobs. Public sector jobs should not be based on race, but rather on merit. And so particularly Asian Americans who have historically done very well in school, take lots of AP classes, get into very elite schools, say we should not be discriminated against because we work hard. Our chance to be admitted into a school should not be taken away and given to a student of a particular race who might not have as good of scores because maybe they didn't earn them. Speaker 4: 09:40 Um, and so there are a lot of Asian Americans that are in within that base who say, don't take away our opportunities just because we're not black or Latino. What does the polling look like for prop 16? Does it look like it has the support to pass? It's still a little unclear at this point. So the Los Angeles times reported back in September on a public policy Institute of California poll that around 31% of likely California, California voters said they would vote for the proposal. Well, 47% said they oppose it. And the remainder of 22% were undecided. So while it looks like the majority of voters are opposing it, um, there's still that 22% that could flip it the other way. So I think we'll have to wait until a little bit closer to election day to really know I've been speaking with KPBS reporter Shalina Chatwani and Shalina. Thank you. Thanks.