The California Reparations Task Force, a committee created by legislation signed by Governor Gavin Newsom, has officially recommended that the state legislature repeal a constitutional amendment that prohibits the government from discriminating against or giving preferential treatment to a person in because of his race.
Last weekend, the task force formally approved its final recommendations to the California Legislature, which will then decide whether to implement the measures and send them to the governor’s office for enactment.
Much of the public attention has focused on the price of the reparations proposed by the committee to fix slavery and anti-black racism. However, several aspects of the committee’s recommendations, which are outlined in hundreds of pages of documents, have received little attention, including a proposal to repeal Proposition 209.
California voters passed Proposition 209, now enshrined in the California constitution, in 1996. The measure amended the California constitution, adding a section that states in part: “The state shall not discriminate against or give preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or the award of public contracts” .
Longtime Los Angeles resident Walter Foster, 80, holds a sign as the Reparations Task Force meets to hear public comment on reparations at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on September 22, 2022. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
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The California Supreme Court said in a 2000 case that, in the context of Proposition 209, discrimination means “making distinctions in treatment; show bias (in favor of) or prejudice (against)” and preferential means “to give priority or advantage to one person…over others.”
Proposition 209 is widely known for prohibiting affirmative action, but effectively outlawed racial discrimination in California. Repealing it would appear to permit discrimination as the court has defined it.
Nonetheless, the task force wants to get rid of the measure, arguing that it actually created more racial discrimination.
“Since its passage, Proposition 209 has had a significant impact on efforts to address entrenched systemic anti-Black bias and discrimination,” the task force wrote in a final report outlining its proposals. “In recognition of the systemic discrimination faced by the African American community and the barriers to justice and redress imposed by Proposition 209, the Task Force recommends that the Legislature take action within its authority to request repeal [of] Proposition 209. This effort must continue until the California constitution has been cleansed of this or any other measure rooted in racism.”
Kamilah Moore, president of the California Reparations Task Force, left, and Amos Brown, vice president, at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on September 22, 2022. ((Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images))
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The task force highlights a study commissioned by the far-left Equal Justice Society, an organization of which a task force member is president, that concluded between $1 billion
and $1.1 billion worth of contracts have been lost each year by women-owned businesses and
people of color because of Proposition 209. The task force report also argued that admissions were denied for black applicants “on all campuses.”
According to UCLA law professor Richard Sander, however, the number of black graduates from the University of California had increased 70% from pre-Proposition 209 levels in 2017. That same year, a- he writes, the number of STEM graduates has increased relative to an annual average. from about 200 before Propositions 209 to 510. The figure rose to 558 in 2018.
It is unclear how the repeal of a measure prohibiting discrimination or preferential treatment based on race would help combat racial discrimination.
One possible explanation concerns legality.
Lisa Holder, a member of the California Reparations Task Force, at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on September 22, 2022. (Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)
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Many of the task force’s proposals are explicitly race-based to make distinctions in favor of black Californians as a means of redressing slavery and the resulting racism. With that in mind, critics of reparations have argued that Proposition 209 could present a legal obstacle to their proposals.
For example, San Francisco resident Richie Greenberg, who founded the successful movement to recall the city’s former district attorney, Chesa Boudin, argued that large-scale repairs would not only violate Proposition 209, but also the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.
Ward Connerly, the leading black voice supporting Proposition 209, expressed similar sentiments.
“It is [Proposition] 209 that will stop our Legislature and Governor from doing something as ridiculous as compensating some of us based on the color of our skin or being the ancestors of slaves,” he tweeted. Last year.
Connerly was president of the California Civil Rights Initiative Campaign in the 1990s and is now founder and president of the American Civil Rights Institute.
March and rally for reparations, child protection and the advancement of human rights, June 17, 2021 in St. Paul, Minn. ((Photo by: Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images))
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The task force did not respond to a request for comment for this story. However, the committee appeared to acknowledge the potential legal obstacle that Proposition 209 presents in its report, writing, “More generally, Proposition 209 is widely seen as a barrier to taking remedial action. The deterrent effect was considerable.
This is not the first effort to repeal Proposition 209. In 2020, Proposition 16 appeared on the general election ballot asking California voters to amend the California Constitution to repeal Proposition 209.
Proposition 16 failed, with 57% of voters saying they wanted to keep Proposition 209, which still remains in effect.
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“In other words, a majority of California voters wanted to keep Proposition 209 in place, maintaining the state’s constitutional prohibition against engaging in racially based discrimination or preferential treatment,” a recent writes Edward Ring, senior fellow at the California Policy Center. of the 2020 election.
