How California has dealt with a ban on affirmative action (prop 209) [View all]

[usonian]

Last edited Fri Jun 30, 2023, 02:40 AM - Edit history (1)

Here are three articles discussing the impact and how educational institutions have tried to work around it.

Here's what happened after California banned affirmative action 25 years ago

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/29/1185140182/heres-what-happened-after-california-banned-affirmative-action-25-years-ago

June 29, 2023

In fact, it's taken UCLA more than two decades to make up the lost ground.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: We turn to the Supreme Court's rejection of affirmative action today. That decision means many of the nation's top universities are likely to see an immediate drop in Black and Latino enrollment. As NPR's Adrian Florido reports, that's what happened in California after that state banned affirmative action 25 years ago.

ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: California knows all about what an affirmative action ban can mean for college campuses. When voters approved a ban that took effect in 1998, the impact at the state's top two public colleges was staggering.

ZACHARY BLEEMER: Enrollments at Berkeley and UCLA among Black and Hispanic students fell 40% immediately.

FLORIDO: Zachary Bleemer is a Princeton economist who's studied the ban's impacts on minority enrollment at University of California campuses. After Black and Latino numbers plummeted, the schools had to figure out how to get them back up using only race-neutral policies. It's been 25 years of trial and error.

With affirmative action gone, California shows what may come next

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2023/0629/With-affirmative-action-gone-California-shows-what-may-come-next

By Ira Porter Staff writer
Henry Gass Staff writer
June 29, 2023
SANTA BARBARA, CALIF.

“UC Santa Barbara has a history of producing scholars, inventors, and scientists,” he adds. “Schools [like that] partnering with grassroots organizations that work directly with the kids is critical, and it completes the cycle in a positive way.”

Now, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that two race-based college admissions policies are unconstitutional, UCSB may become a reference point for universities around the country. While the high court appears to have left universities with some wiggle room to consider race in admissions, those policies are now, for the first time in 45 years, broadly prohibited nationwide.

California, though, has not had affirmative action for 25 years, and universities there have found a way forward. For Mr. Mathis and Mr. Fluker, the way forward on this April afternoon is to a nearby beach, where students pick seashells, pose for pictures, and play icebreaker games with members of UCSB’s Black Student Union.

This is the work. Sometimes it’s arduous, with long days and nights in rental cars traveling up and down America’s most populous state to speak with prospective students. Sometimes it’s asking for favors from faculty and staff or student groups when potential students visit campus. Sometimes it’s heavy labor – like breaking down tables. But the work is always strategic; it’s always intentional.

Examining the impact of California's ban on affirmative action in public schools
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/27/1184461214/examining-the-impact-of-californias-ban-on-affirmative-action-in-public-schools

June 27, 20235:10 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition

MARTÍNEZ: Now, your research goes beyond college life to long-term economic outcomes resulting from the '96 ban. What did you find?

BLEEMER: So when you compare Black and Hispanic and Native American Californians who turned 18 in 1998, one year too late for them to take advantage of the University of California's prior affirmative action policies, you see that, you know, they enroll at less selective universities because affirmative action was unavailable. And that has long-run ramifications for those students. They're less likely to earn graduate degrees. Among lower-testing students, they're less likely to ever earn an undergraduate degree at all. They're less likely to earn degrees in lucrative STEM fields. And if you follow them into the labor market, for the subsequent 15 or 20 years, they're earning about 5% lower wages than they would have earned if they'd had access to more selective universities under affirmative action.

Black and Hispanic students saw substantially poorer long-run labor market prospects as a result of losing access to these very selective universities. But there was no commensurate gain in long-run outcomes for the white and Asian students who took their place. It seems like these very selective public universities in California just provided greater value to relatively disadvantaged Black and Hispanic students who came from lower-income neighborhoods, had poorer job networks, relatively less access to otherwise successful peers, and who were thus able to better take advantage of the resources provided by these super selective universities than the white and Asian students who took their places.