The Supreme Court’s recent decision to end racial preferences in college admissions came 27 years after California did likewise – by a vote of the people. California Democrats are now trying to restore racial preferences, which are not the same as “affirmative action.”

The 1965 Executive Order 11246 bars discrimination on the basis of race and other factors, and orders “affirmative action”  to ensure treatment “without regard” to race, color, religion, sex and so forth.  Long before the executive order, California was taking affirmative action on the education front.

Fresno City College, established in 1910, was the first of a state-wide system of community colleges that now numbers 116 campuses serving 1.8 million students. The great Jackie Robinson was an alum of Pasadena City College, founded in 1924. No student was barred from admission to California’s community colleges on the basis of race, ethnicity or national origin.

San Jose State, founded in 1857, was the first of California’s state universities that now include 23 campuses serving 460,000 students a year. No student is barred from admission on the basis of race or ethnicity.

The University of California, founded in 1868, now includes 10 campuses serving more than 280,000 students. In 1939, Jackie Robinson enrolled at UCLA and in 1954, future decathlon champion Rafer Johnson attended UCLA on both athletic and academic scholarships.

Johnson became student body president and decathlete C.K. Yang, whom he defeated in the 1960 Olympics, was also a UCLA student. The Republic of China (Taiwan) native entered UCLA in 1959 speaking no English and graduated in 1964. So long before the executive order, California universities were diverse.

The University of California system is for the top nine percent of the state’s high-school graduates, but it is possible to transfer from community college, and many students make the move. The system provides a place for all, and no student is denied entry on the basis of race or ethnicity. This did not prevent UC bureaucrats from taking negative action based on race.

UC Davis medical school twice rejected fully qualified person of pallor Alan Bakke on the grounds that places had been reserved for minorities. In reality, UC Davis had discriminated against Bakke on the basis of race. That had been common practice even before the 1978 Bakke case, and continued long after. The people finally rose up against institutional racism.

The California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), Proposition 209 on the November 5, 1996 ballot, eliminated racial preferences in state education, employment and contracting.  The most vocal opponent was the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the former presidential candidate who once referred to Jews as “hymies” and New York as “Hymietown.”

Jackson headed up a “Save the Dream” bus tour, accompanied by Dolores Huerta of the United Farm Workers, Eleanor Smeal of the Feminist Majority and representatives of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlan (MEChA), whose founding text is La Raza Cosmica, by Jose Vasconcelos.

“All evidence shows that women and blacks are facing closed doors,” Jackson told a crowd at UCLA in September, 1996.  The people didn’t think so.

Californians approved CCRI by a margin of 54 to 46 percent, and the initiative did not end affirmative action. The state still provided a place for every student, and state universities could help students on an economic basis. The disaster racial preference forces predicted never came about.

As Thomas Sowell noted in Intellectuals and Race, declines in minority enrollment at UCLA and Berkeley were offset by increases at other UC campuses. More important, the number of African-American and Hispanic students graduating from the UC system increased, including a 55 percent increase in those graduating in four years with a GPA of 3.5 or higher.

After the preference ban took effect, blacks and Hispanics with degrees in science, technology, math, and engineering rose 51 percent, and the number of doctorates earned by such students rose 25 percent. Students were not represented according to their percentage of the population but that never occurs due to factors such as  personal differences, effort and choice.

The notion that students must be represented according to their percentage in the population, and that there can be “too many” of one particular group, is not state law. Proposition 209, on the other hand, is enshrined in the state constitution. That did not prevent leftist legislators and bureaucrats from loading up against the measure, on the taxpayers’ dime.

In 2011, UC San Diego created a vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion, as Heather MacDonald noted, a “diversity sinecure,” that was “wildly redundant,” costly, and unnecessary in the light of state law. UC regents approved the new post, as the UC system jacked up tuition and pepper-sprayed students peacefully protesting the hikes.

In 2012, state senator Edward Hernandez introduced Senate Constitutional Amendment 5, to allow voters to consider elimination of CCRR’s ban on race and ethnic preferences. Olivia Liao, president of the Joint Chinese University Alumni Association, flagged SCA-5 as discriminatory and argued for admissions “based on merit.” The amendment was withdrawn in 2014 but staged a comeback in 2020.

San Diego Democrat Shirley Weber revived SCA-5, charging that “California’s equal opportunity program was upended by the passage of Proposition 209 in 1996.” According to Weber, now California’s secretary of state,  “lingering, and even increasing, disparity still exists, particularly for Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Black Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans, and women, and should be rectified.” The amendment landed on the 2020 ballot as Proposition 16.

If approved, the measure would the measure would “repeal Proposition 209—Section 31 of Article I of the California Constitution. This would eliminate the ban on the consideration of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public education, public employment, and public contracting.”

California voters rejected Prop 16 57.23 to 42.77, a wider margin than the victory of Proposition 209 in 1996. Once again the voice of the people fell on deaf ears.

Assembly Democrat Corey Jackson introduced Assembly Constitutional Amendment 7, which targets Proposition 209. Subject to “approval by the governor,” the measure approves “researched based” programs for “increasing the life expectancy of, improving educational outcomes for, or lifting out of poverty specific groups based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, or marginalized genders, sexes, or sexual orientations.”

As CalMatters explains, the measure would “allow state agencies to send the governor a waiver request to avoid Proposition 209’s restrictions, as long as the exception is based on scholarly research,” which in California can mean just about anything.

Republican Bill Essayli, the first Muslim to serve in the state Assembly, called ACA-7 a “backwards policy.” Jackson, the first black member of the LGBTQ Caucus, replied that Essayli, son of Lebanese immigrants, is “a perfect example how a minority can become a white supremacist by doing everything possible to win white supremacist and fascist affection.”

What Essayli calls a “backwards policy” may land on the 2024 ballot. In the meantime, as the U.S. Supreme Court eliminates racial preferences, California Democrats strive to restore them, in violation of their own law. When it comes to institutional racism, California leads the pack.