California lawmakers have authorized a new ballot measure that would partially repeal Proposition 209, the 1996 initiative that banned the state from granting preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, or ethnicity in public employment, contracting, and education. According to reporting in The Daily Wire, the measure was approved on a strict party-line vote in late August and, if passed by voters, would make the 30-year-old ban inapplicable to most aspects of public education.
The referendum would not appear on the ballot until November 2028, setting up a two-year campaign over one of the most durable and divisive provisions in California law.
What the measure would do
Under the proposal, Proposition 209 would be removed entirely from the kindergarten-through-12th-grade level. The most immediate effect, according to the source article, would be the elimination of the ban on race-conscious admissions to gifted and talented programs — practices that were common in California before Proposition 209 took effect.
The referendum does not attempt to remove Proposition 209 from university-level admissions and enrollment. According to the source, that is because the Supreme Court ruled three years ago that race-based admissions at institutions of higher education are unconstitutional, making a state-level effort to reauthorize them legally futile. However, the measure does remove Proposition 209 from what the article describes as “every other aspect of higher education,” including student financial aid, grading, campus housing, graduation requirements, and institutional-level funding.
Of those, financial aid may be the most immediate target. The article raises the concern that adding race to existing need-based aid calculations would primarily benefit the children of well-off parents — students who already have the means to pay but who happen to be the right race — and would breed racial resentment rather than remedy it.
The source further notes that sponsors are not simply seeking marginally better aid packages for certain groups. The article points to entirely free tuition for African Americans, one of the recommendations from California’s Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans.
The measure’s sponsors are all members of the California Legislative Black Caucus, according to the source. The referendum is part of the CLBC’s “Road to Repair” priority bill package, which the caucus itself describes as grounded in the Task Force’s recommendations. Sponsors have framed the measure as a clarification of existing law, a characterization the article disputes.
A history of failed attempts
The article traces a pattern of earlier efforts to weaken Proposition 209. In 2020, at the height of the racial justice protests, the Legislature authorized a referendum that would have repealed Proposition 209 entirely. It was endorsed by leading Democrats and every major newspaper in the state except the Orange County Register. Its campaign budget was reportedly more than 14 times the size of the opposition’s. Voters rejected it 57 percent to 44 percent.
That defeat stunned many of the state’s lawmakers, according to the source. But rather than abandon the effort, the article argues, they concluded they needed to be stealthier. A follow-up attempt in the 2023-24 session would have given the governor power to grant an unlimited number of “exceptions” to Proposition 209. It passed the Assembly easily but died in the Senate — not because senators opposed it on principle, the article says, but because they worried it wasn’t clever enough to avoid public detection.
That history helps explain the structure of the new referendum. By limiting the repeal to K-12 and non-admissions functions of higher education, sponsors can argue the measure is technical rather than sweeping. The article calls this a strategy to obscure the measure’s likely effects.
The broader political context
The source article frames the referendum as an example of California’s political priorities. With the state facing homelessness, wildfires, and deteriorating infrastructure, it argues, Sacramento has instead focused on identity politics, with racial preferences — sometimes described as reparations — taking precedence over other concerns.
The article’s author is Gail Heriot, a senior scholar at the Manhattan Institute who co-chaired the original Yes on Proposition 209 campaign. Her piece is a critical take on the referendum and the lawmakers behind it, and it is worth noting that the source material represents one side of a contested debate. Supporters of the measure argue that Proposition 209 has entrenched racial disparities in California’s schools and universities and that narrowly tailored remedies are needed. Opponents argue that the measure violates the plain language of a voter-approved civil rights guarantee.
The practical stakes are significant regardless of where one stands. California’s public school system enrolls roughly 5.8 million students, and its public universities educate more than two million more. Changing how race can be considered in gifted programs, financial aid, housing, and grading would affect millions of students and billions of dollars in state funding.
The 2020 repeal effort failed despite overwhelming financial and institutional support, suggesting that California voters have a durable attachment to Proposition 209’s core promise. Whether that attachment holds through 2028 — and whether the new measure’s narrower scope changes the political calculus — remains an open question. As the source article concludes, it remains to be seen whether the newest effort will be tricky enough to pass, or whether voters will see through it.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/california-democrats-want-to-bring-back-racial-discrimination-in-education