Statewide Ballot Initiatives are No Way to Craft Policy on Race Relations, Civil Rights and Anti-Discrimination Laws

NOWHERE WILL President Clinton’s challenge to achieve one America, free of racial tension or disunity, be greater than in California. It will take no less than a herculean effort by Californians to overcome our unwillingness to engage in a frank and thoughtful discussion of the realities of discrimination and inequality in this state, let alone consider that specific remedies must be applied by government, schools and the private sector to overcome racial privileges and a legacy of discrimination.

It is only through these types of remedies that we can open up the great human and economic potential that our state’s population holds. It is not too late for us to reconsider issues raised by two recently adopted statewide initiatives and one on the horizon before race and ethnic relations across the state are damaged beyond repair.

Indeed, the prosperity and very quality of life in California will be jeopardized if we do not engage in this discussion vigorously and with an eye to making immediate policy changes. This is the time for tough talk, reasoned discussions and decisive action to heal the racial rifts in California’s society and body politic.

Arthur Schlesinger asserts, arguably, in his treatise “The Disuniting of America,” that multicultural and Afrocentric curricula, along with affirmative action strategies, help contribute to disunity among groups in our population.

In contemporary California, I think a strong case can be made that the disuniting of groups by race and national origin has been the work of very different types of social and political forces. In our case, disunity and discord are chiefly the products of the manipulation and abuse of affirmative action policies and the growth in the state’s immigrant population as part of a short-term electoral or political strategy by elected officials and political operatives from both of the major political parties.

Also, the proponents of Propositions 187 and 209, with winner-take-all attitudes regarding sensitive issues of race relations, bear the lion’s share of responsibility for having turned California into an ethnic and racialized battleground. We need to take time out to consider another path.

For example, recent admission and enrollment outcomes in the law and medical schools of the University of California are troublesome. Undergraduate admissions in the fall of 1998 are likely to reflect alarming declines in the number of African-American and Mexican-American enrollees because of voter-mandated limitations on admission criteria for California’s high school students.

It will not be surprising to see declines from 35 percent to 50 percent in the number of new Mexican-American students at campuses such as UC-Berkeley, UCLA and UC-San Diego, even though those turned away are otherwise academically eligible to attend any University of California.

There is already a lamentable dearth of faculty from underrepresented backgrounds. Indeed, the limited presence of Mexican-Americans and African-Americans on the faculty and among the undergraduate, graduate and professional school student body may become reminiscent of the apartheid system of the pre-reform Republic of South Africa.

We need to recognize that SAT scores and GPAs in themselves are not reliable predictors of college success, as evidenced by recent independent studies and a report submitted last week to the UC Regents. These must not be the sole academic criteria for determining who should be admitted to the University of California, a state-supported institution.

Most of us are very well aware that no single ethnic group constitutes a demographic majority in this state. And whether or not we find the demographic changes agreeable, we can greatly benefit from the realization that people of all groups must sink or swim together.

Unless we all prosper through access to education, public goods, job training and business development, the state as a whole will fall behind in the global marketplace and will suffer a further deterioration in its quality of life. Stated more positively, California’s diverse population is a tremendous potential human and economic asset that has yet to be tapped.

The state’s single largest population group is one of its most excluded >from educational and economic opportunity, a fact that bears tremendous social and economic costs for all Californians.

As of this year Latinos, mostly U.S.-born and of Mexican origin, represent the single largest ethnic group in California’s K-12 school system (39.1 percent of the student body), and Mexican-Americans are rapidly becoming a demographic plurality statewide, representing majority populations in many cities and about 40 percent of residents in Los Angeles County.

Yet Latino eligibility for admission to the University of California is at a dismal level of 3.9 percent of all who graduate from the state’s high schools, the lowest of any ethnic group in the state. Mexican-Americans represent the largest sector of the working poor and suffer high school dropout rates higher than any other group.

This process of racial discrimination and segregation has created a significantly skewed distribution of wealth and educational outcomes by ethnicity that mars California’s social landscape, hinders the ability of many individuals to achieve their full potential, and could lead to the undoing of California.

What is worse is that recent statewide initiative and political campaigns have served to aggravate racial inequalities and ethnic distrust, especially the elections of 1994 and 1996.

There is a common thread to the political as well as policy fallout of Propositions 187 and 209 and the proposed initiative restricting second language instruction in California’s schools being bankrolled by Silicon Valley businessman Ron Unz. For both 187 and 209, the distribution of votes varied greatly by ethnicity and gender, with African-American, Latino and Asian/Pacific Islander voters defeating these measures, other women divided, and other, white male voters deciding the elections.

Statewide ballot initiatives are probably the worst vehicle to craft policy on such delicate matters as race relations, civil rights and anti-discrimination law. By their very nature, these statewide plebiscites are not exercises in direct democracy as envisioned by the reform movement of 80 years ago.

Instead, modern statewide initiatives are crafted by a few political operatives with access to deep pockets and insider networks, resulting in campaigns guided by media presentations of half-truths and deception. Such initiatives are not subject to sufficient legal review, and represent a tyranny of the majority of voters in a given election year. It’s a winner-take-all system based on a simple majority vote, often with high-stakes outcomes for those on the losing side.

Think about it. A small group can change the state constitution by marketing a 51 percent vote, making it extremely difficult for those on the losing end to defend their interests in court due to the high cost of litigation. Losers also face such damaging consequences as the denial of opportunities or services, as in the case of Propositions 187 and 209.

This is far from the idea of democracy forwarded by the framers of children in this state, particularly for those who come from homes where English is not the first language.

Curiously, the kinds of in-your-face challenges represented by Propositions 187 and 209 and the Unz proposal may only invite a similar in-your-face response. I will not be surprised if some sort of new initiative proposal emerges in the next two to four years to reverse the restrictions of affirmative action and anti-discrimination remedies imposed by the draconian Proposition 209.

Ultimately, the political stakes raised by the proponents of Propositions 187 and 209 may have the unintended effect of accelerating the emergence of a new California electorate and new coalitions in statewide elections, with Mexican and Asian-Pacific immigrants becoming voters and voting in larger numbers.

Is there an alternative to our state of racial disunity? Perhaps a new coalition can be formed based on a belief that we must work across communities to build a better California for the benefit of all our children.

Will California ever obtain a passing grade in its effort to seek unity and a common purpose? Only by working overtime to achieve unity can we indeed move forward and ensure the one America sought by the president’s initiative on race relations. For the sake of our children and the future well-being of the state, we must embark on this difficult task. Starting now.



Comments are closed.