Skip to content
Support

Support Prop 16 and Reverse the Ban on Equal Opportunity Policies

09.03.20
EJS_FB_Share

By Khydeeja Alam Javid, Director of Government Relations and Sadalia King, Manager of Government Relations

With the compounding viruses of COVID-19 and police violence, the governing dynamic of structural racism is on full display and can no longer be ignored. For us to meet our rhetoric with real action, we must marshal all of our resources and collective wisdom to understand how our systems have consistently failed Black, Indigenous, and other people of color.

California voters will have an opportunity to repeal Proposition 209 with Proposition 16. Passage of Proposition 16 will permit the use of race, gender, and ethnic diversity as factors (but not decisive factors) in college admissions, government hiring, and government contracting.

Proposition 209 was an anti-equal opportunity measure that ended almost all programs designed to open the doors of equal opportunity for people of color and women in California’s public sector. A generation later, racial disparities in education, housing, safety, and health have either stagnated or worsened. And yet another generation of low-income communities of color have been excluded from California’s promise.

Before Proposition 209, the opportunity gap faced by women and people of color had begun to shrink as state agencies enacted policies to eliminate patterns of institutionalized segregation and exclusion in the workforce. California managed to increase the representation of women and minorities in the state service, without effectuating quota systems.

Proposition 16 would reverse the nearly 24-year-old ban on equal opportunity policies like affirmative action so that the state of California can implement programs and policies that provide opportunities for all Californians, not just the privileged few. Passage of Proposition 16 is an important step towards bringing racial equity and fairness in the state and doing right by California’s growth, its diversity, and its people.

This November, Californians will consider a set of ballot measures that could reshape our state into a more just and equitable society for generations to come. Here are our endorsements, offered to help move California into that better tomorrow: